THE PRESENT STATE 



Methodic Episcopal Church. 

A SYMPOSIUM. 



Dr. HENRY A. BUTTZ, 

Dr. J. A. M. CHAPMAN, 

Mr. JOHN A. WRIGHT, 

Dr. GEORGE R.~ CROOKS, 

Mr. WILLIAM WHITE, 

Dr. ENSIGN McCHESNEY, 

Dr. CHARLES J. LITTLE, 

Dr. BRADFORD P. RAYMOND, 

Dr. GEORGE R. CROOKS, 

Dr. O. H. WARREN. 



HUNT & EATON 
NORTHERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE OFFICE 
SYRACUSE 
1891 



THE PRESENT STATE 

OF THE 

Methodist Episcopal Church 

A SYMPOSIUM 



EDITED BY 

GEORGE R. CROOKS, D.D. 



JU1 25 1891:, 



HUNT & EATON 
NORTHERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE OFFICE 
SYRACUSE 
1891 



Copyright, 1891, Dy 
HUNT & EATON, 
New York. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The articles brought together in this pamphlet aim to 
be plain talks to the Church on topics which concern its 
welfare. The writers, whether ministers or laymen, have 
given it long years of service, and may, on that ground 
at least, be entitled to speak. As far as it has been 
granted them to see the truth they have tried to express 
the truth, yet always, they hope, in the right spirit. 
They are not responsible for one another's opinions ; each 
is responsible for what he has himself written, and no 
more. It will be seen, however, that the contributors 
wholly agree in generals, though they may disagree in 
particulars. A free parliament was intended, and a free 
parliament this has been. 

The Editor begs to say, too, that the Symposium is his 
own project, and that the writers were selected by himself, 
as also were the topics, with the exception of three. In 
putting the project into shape he has had the benefit of 
the counsel of Prof. Charles J. Little, and also Dr. O. 
H. 'Warren, of the Northern Christian Advocate, to both 
of whom the Symposium is much indebted for its success- 
ful completion. 



4 EDITORS PREFACE. 

At the end of the series we have placed passages from 
the editorial of Dr. Warren, published concurrently with 
the last article. We ask the editors to whom copies are 
sent to do as he has done — speak their minds. The old 
method has been to ignore, repress, or suppress whatever 
has overleaped certain lines of thought. Let us, once for 
all, be done with this, and meet with manliness the ques- 
tions w T hich press upon the Church for settlement. 



CONTENTS. 



i. 

PAGB 

The Obligations of a Great Church. Dr. Henry A. Buttz. 7 

II. 

The Unrest of the Pastors. Dr. J. A. M. Chapman 17 

III. 

The Patronage of the General Conference. Mr. John 

A. Wright 26 

IY. 

A Revival of Biblical Preaching the Present Need of 

Methodism. Dr. George R. Crooks 34 

V. 

The Centennial of the Death of John Wesley and its 

Lessons. Mr. William White 45 

VI, 

The Effect or Increased Wealth upon American Meth- 
odism. Dr. Ensign McChesney 53 

VII. 

Some Defects in Our Itinerancy. Dr. Charles J. Little ... 65 

VIII. 

The Scantiness of Literary Production in Our Church. 

Dr. Bradford P. Raymond , 73 

IX. 

The Structure of the Church as Affording Facilities 

for Intrigue. Dr. George R. Crooks 83 

X. 

Editorial. Dr. O. H. Warren 93 



SYMPOSIUM. 



I. 

THE OBLIGATIONS OF A GREAT CHURCH. 

BY REV. HENRY A. BUTTZ, D.D., 

President of Drew Theological Seminary. 

The Church of Jesus Christ is God's kingdom in action 
for the salvation of men. It is divinely established with 
well defined purposes which can neither be abridged, obliter- 
ated, nor enlarged. It is a product of the divine thought and 
of the divine energy. Its work has been committed to hu- 
man agents acting under the limitations of human reason 
and conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and the sacred 
Scriptures. A Church is a great Church in the proportion 
in which it has received by divine impulse, and by human 
agency co-operating with it, the power of promoting the 
plans and purposes of~ human redemption. A great Church 
is one whose success, in all lines of Christian development, 
has been such as to lead to its general recognition as an 
important factor in the world's progress. It may be safely 
assumed that the Methodist Episcopal Church is a great 
Church. Its agencies for usefulness, including its members 
and its ministers, its schools, colleges, and theological sem- 
inaries, its publishing-houses and its periodicals, as also its 
benevolent enterprises, have won for it recognition as one of 
the most important factors in the history of religious prog- 
ress. We do not propose to speak of it as the Church or the 



8 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



great Church — that would be to claim too much — but as a 
great Church. 

This greatness carries with it important obligations. The 
obligation is to God, and to the world for whose welfare the 
Church exists. The measure of obligation is ability and op- 
portunity. It cannot be doubted that the Church of which 
we are speaking has these two elements. The description of 
the ideal Church is to be found, either in actual expression 
or by reasonable inference, in the New Testament. What, 
then, are some of the obligations of such a Church ? 

Its first obligation is to maintain unimpaired the doctrine 
of salvation. There can be no step forward without this 
primary condition. Every organized body must maintain its 
fundamental idea or must cease to exist. The doctrine of sal- 
vation lies at the foundation of the great spiritual edifice. 
The early Church councils were but the effort to express 
this primary conception. No visitor to the ancient city of 
Trent can fail to be impressed with this thought : rightly or 
wrongly, a great effort was made at the famous council held 
there to define the truth. The purpose was undoubtedly 
right, though we may question the wisdom of some of the 
results which were there formulated. The later history of 
the Church has emphasized this view. No one in the light 
of general church history can question the importance of 
formulated expressions of saving truth. Especially is this 
true of Methodism. The early Conferences held by Mr. 
Wesley were small councils, of himself and his preachers, for 
the purpose of giving precise statements of the essential 
doctrines which they preached. The doctrinal formulations 
of Mr. Wesley and his co-laborers, especially on the subjects 
of justification and sanctification, are among the clearest and 
most accurate to be found in the whole realm of theological 
literature. The followers of Mr. Wesley cannot be indif- 
ferent to that which he and his able band of co-workers 
regarded as so important. 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF A GREAT CHURCH. 



9 



This precision of statement which must be maintained also 
suggests dangers and limitations. There is danger lest we 
add to the body of doctrine any thing on which emphasis 
has not been laid in the word of God, and of enforcing as 
essential that which was not held to be such by those who 
spoke as they were moved of the Holy Ghost. For Prot- 
estant Christendom, at least, the Scriptures constitute the 
only body of doctrine, and we pledge ourselves in our ordina- 
tion vows to maintain nothing as necessary to salvation which 
cannot be " concluded and proved " thereby. The vexed 
questions of the Church can best be settled by insisting only 
upon those things which can be maintained by a clear and 
harmonious exegesis. Those who would impose doctrines 
upon the Church which grow out of the silence of the Script- 
ures on these subjects, are laying upon the consciences of men 
a yoke which Christ and his apostles never imposed. Those 
who would enforce upon the Church views in respect to justi- 
fication, sanctification, or the future life, which are not clearly 
set forth in God's word, are adding to the body of doctrine 
without authority and without excuse. Hence the doctrine 
of a second probation, which its defenders have affirmed on 
a scriptual foundation, which they acknowledge to be exceed- 
ingly weak, cannot enter as a form of doctrinal statement. 
The opposite doctrine is manifest on the very surface of 
Scripture, and 'to form an amended statement, grounded on 
subjective considerations, is to surrender the truth for the 
vagaries of human reason. The Church is under obligation 
to prevent additions, as well as to maintain in their fullness 
the doctrines of the Gospel revealed in the Scriptures. 

There is another obligation growing out of the critical 
studies and so-called advanced thought of the age. The 
historical method of investigation has become the recognized 
one in all departments of inquiry. The lines of the world's 
thought run now in this direction, and all critical problems 
must be met from the critical stand-point of to-day. No 



10 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



Church, which would maintain its hold upon the confidence 
of thoughtful men, can pass in silence or in derision the prog- 
ress of scholarship in its relation to the date, composition, 
and structure of the sacred Scriptures. Whether Moses 
w T rote the books of the Pentateuch may not be a test question 
as to their inspiration, but as a question, which has been raised 
and is now before the world, it must be considered fairly, 
fully, and dispassionately. Scholarship to be true must be 
free, and no progress is possible without recognizing this 
principle. The difference, however, in the results of investi- 
gation is largely the difference of the j)oint of approach. 
When the rationalist or infidel begins his investigations by 
the assumptions of destructive criticism, and ignores the 
work of centuries of scholarship in favor of the sacred writ- 
ings, he proceeds by a false method and must reach unsatis- 
factory conclusions. He is unwilling to see other than that 
which his subjective prepossessions have determined that he 
shall see. So, when from our stand-point, we approach all 
criticism with the assumption that it contains no element of 
truth, and must in the very nature of the case be rejected in 
its entirety, we too are shutting our eyes so that we cannot 
see. We have a right to insist that the results of centuries 
of investigation shall count for something. We have a right 
to claim that the beneficent influence of certain forms of 
truth upon the world shall count something for their 
accuracy and divineness. We have a right to demand that 
the overthrow of foundations can only be acknowledged 
when the demonstrations against them shall be absolutely 
complete, and admitted to be so by all candid minds. 

There is no doubt that, within the limits of a true rational 
and scientific inquiry, no portion of sacred truth will be 
seriously modified. Its divine authority will only be the 
stronger when the most rigid tests have been applied to it. 
When Lachmann first laid down his principles of text criti- 
cism, he was regarded not in the light of a reformer, but as a 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF A GREAT CHURCH. 



11 



revolutionist. To rely solely upon the testimony of the most 
ancient manuscripts was believed to be destructive of the 
true text. The most rigid application of his principles of 
historical criticism of the New Testament has not invalidated 
that text, but has established it with an authority which be- 
longs to none of the classical productions of antiquity. The 
progress of text criticism has not led to the modification of a 
single one of the great doctrines of the Church of Christ. 
The gospel of St. John will serve as an additional illustra- 
tion. For dogmatic reasons it has been attempted to show 
that it was the production of a later age. The controversy 
has been long, and the battle has been waged with all the 
resources of learning, logical power, and critical acumen. 
What has been the result ? Only this : the authorship of 
the fourth gospel has been shown to rest upon a basis so im- 
pregnable that it may be questioned whether another attempt 
will be seriously made to overthrow the mature verdict of 
historic investigation. A great Church owes it to the world, 
owes it to its own people, to carry forward, under her own 
auspices and by her own scholars, those processes of critical 
study upon which so much depends. The work of adverse 
criticism will not down by our fulminations against it. It 
can only be overthrown by equal scholarship and adequate 
logical power. A great Church must cherish her scholars, 
not regarding them as mere appendages to her general work, 
but* as the great forces which, although unknown to the 
masses around them, are preserving the foundations of the 
sacred edifice. Surely they, if any, are entitled to be con- 
sidered pillars in the Church of God. 

This attitude of the Church toward criticism determines 
also her obligations to education. Scholarship is not pro- 
duced by revolution, but by evolution. It is a growth. It 
demands time. It also requires contact and familiarity with 
the choicest and best thought of the past and the present. 
The great institutions of learning come out of the past. The 



12 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



ancient, the mediaeval, and the modern meet in the college or 
university. The demand, now so current, that all education 
must be modern is a demand false in philosophy and mis- 
chievous in tendency. It is like suggesting to a student that 
he knows enough of geology when he has examined the mere 
crust of the earth on which he walks. One cannot know 
this science fully without knowing its growth as well as its 
present position. That which goes before is necessary to a 
full comprehension of that which comes after. The whole 
moral and religious life of the world is connected with past 
language, history, philosophy, and tradition, and no mere 
surface education can meet the requirements of the Church 
of the twentieth century. The Church, then, owes it to her- 
self and to humanity to provide the best institutions possible 
for the development of scholarship and character, for the 
the two are very closely related to each other. It will make 
a great difference to our future scholars whether their highest 
training shall be under influences friendly or hostile to 
Christ. The Church, then, must not provide for the mere 
primary forms of education to the neglect of the higher. 
She must endow institutions where the ripest scholarship is 
found in union with the most implicit faith. This obligation 
is one she cannot throw off without peril. 

Nor is a great Church free from obligation to art and to 
literature. They are broader in their influence than mere 
critical studies, and hence the more important to be directed 
if not controlled. In the circles of modern culture these two 
occupy the foremost place, and hence must not be undervalued. 
In the earlier days, when art was at its best, in the period of 
the great masters, Christ was the center of the choicest 
achievements of the pencil and the chisel. The Last Supper, 
the Madonna, the Holy Family, were subjects on which were 
expended the taste and skill of the finest artists. The same, 
however, cannot be said of literature. It has been in all ages 
the foe as well as the friend of truth. In the pagan world 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF A GREAT CHURCH. 13 



literature assumed forms whose very depravity has in a 
measure protected the modern world from its influence. 
Some of its choicest productions were intended for the stage, 
and partook of qualities which adapted them to the audiences 
for which they were written. The possible degradation of 
these highest productions of the beautiful in literature makes 
the subject one in which the Church must have a permanent 
interest. Her attitude toward literature and art should not 
be iconoclastic, but friendly. She should accept them as the 
handmaids of religion in promoting noble living and choice 
thinking. She may not allow them to be substitutes for re- 
ligion. She must restore and maintain their power with 
their purity, and thus develop a taste for the highest pro- 
ductions of the imagination and the purest sentiments of the 
heart. Why should not the Church develop taste, and 
furnish from her own ranks those whose words bear " sweet- 
ness and light " to all lovers of " the true, the beautiful, and 
the good ? " It is pleasant to know that some of the choicest 
productions in literature are even now proceeding from the 
pens guided and controlled by those who love Christ. The 
same is true of art. It must be elevated, consecrated, en- 
nobled ; and this can only be done when the Church shall 
recognize her obligation to everything that makes for human 
welfare. Here, too, we may claim that some of the finest 
lovers of art are found among the warmest adherents of 
Jesus Christ. The eye and the hand of multitudes in the 
Church, who are full of promise, are being trained for service 
in these directions, and thus potent influences for good are 
working in the world. These factors of human progress, 
believed by many to be out of the sphere of the Church, 
may be employed for the glory of God and the spread of 
holiness ; or, if neglected, may become fearful in their in- 
fluence upon some of the most interesting people and those 
best fitted for highest usefulness. What the attitude of the 
Church shall be toward literature and art is a subject which 



14 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHUROH. 



we cannot regard with indifference. It should be sympa- 
thetic and cordial, while resisting every thing likely to de- 
grade them from the high position, which in the very nature 
of things they should occupy, as elements in a true Christian 
civilization. 

A great Church has a supreme obligation also to the moral 
or ethical life of the world. All Christian activity finds its 
proper expression in the moral life. Jesus himself said, " By 
their fruits ye shall know them." Character and conduct are 
the tests of fellowship with him. Wherever beautiful living 
is found, deeds of love wrought, noble actions performed, 
there is the expression of genuine religion. Hence the Church 
of Christ is friendly to all the virtues and hostile to all the 
vices. By the very terms of her existence she must be a foe 
to human slavery, to intemperance, and to all kindred evils. 
Nor can she be indifferent to any thing that seriously im- 
, pairs the moral development of the race. She is bound to 
protect the holy Sabbath, to restrain low and debasing 
pleasures, and, in connection therewith, to develop the indi- 
vidual life so that men shall love and follow the good. In 
every real moral crisis her voice cannot be silent without dis- 
loyalty to her God. She must be at once the friend of 
freedom and the friend of law. She must alike maintain 
penalty and reward. She must also be progressive, ready to 
accept whatever is new, provided that it shall be also true. 
The historic Church has sometimes hesitated, but in the main 
has not failed in this particular. In the crucial hours of 
history she has never been wanting. 

The moral aspects of the New Testament must ever be 
upheld before men. As its purity is beyond reproach, so 
must the purity of the Christian life be maintained unsullied 
before the world. The Church owes to the world to main- 
tain the loftiest ideals of living, the highest standards of duty. 
She must read and expound before the people the life of 
Christ as well as his atoning death. She must unfold in 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF A GREAT CHURCH. 



15 



their fullness the doctrinal portions of the writings of Paul, 
and at the same time not forget to emphasize his ethical 
teachings. She must read Romans, but not omit James. In 
short, the Church cannot shrink from her high obligations to 
the moral life of the world. 

This ethical life of the Church must show itself not only 
in the ideals which she upholds and in the ordinary life she 
leads, but also in the methods she employs for her own ad- 
vancement. One of the dangers of great organizations grows 
out of the lack of individuality in their general management. 
It is not uncommon for an organization to do things which 
an individual member of it would not do. Even in church 
life there is danger lest desire for success should obscure the 
noblest methods of performing God's work. A study of the 
life of Christ will reveal to us how absolute was his adher- 
ence to his own principles in his own daily life. Did he 
exhort to self-denial? His life was one complete self-abne- 
gation. Did he emphasize truth ? He was both the em- 
bodiment of truth and its expression. Did he proclaim the 
duty of love to men? He showed its highest expression in 
giving up his life in their behalf. So the Church, separate 
from the world, as it claims to be in theory, must also be 
separate in fact. No Church can pursue Christian ends by 
unchristian means. To do so is to abandon the very charter 
under which she exists. Nor can the Church be employed 
as a means of individual advancement. In the very nature 
of things there are various positions in the Church of God. 
Viewed from a human stand-point, some of these are higher 
and some are lower. But office as such has no place in the 
organization of the Church. " One is your master, even 
Christ, and all ye are brethren." 

It may be asked, How are these things related to the 
supreme purpose for which the Church is instituted, namely, 
that of saving men ? The relation is this : Christianity 
saves not only the soul, but the complete man ; it saves him 



13 PRESENT STATE OF TEE CHURCH. 

soul, body, and mind ; it saves his whole nature, his entire 
personality. It saves him in this world, it saves him in the 
world to come. The obligation, then, of the Church is to 
use all the powers committed to her for the highest pur- 
poses. There must be in the true Church no unused facul- 
ties, no unemployed opportunities. She must connect her- 
self first of all, and in a sense including all, with the procla- 
mation of the Gospel. There is no land that she must not 
penetrate; there must be no individual to whom she does 
not tell the story of redemption. There must be no mistake 
as to the nature of the story she is to tell. The great doc- 
trine, salvation by faith only, must be proclaimed and in- 
sisted upon. But with this, and in order to this, she must be 
broad enough to touch every interest which has to do with 
the moral and spiritual upbuilding of humanity. All this 
she is bound to perform in strict conformity with the main- 
tenance of her historic usages and traditions. The Method- 
ist Episcopal Church has peculiarities. She has methods of 
work which she must not forsake. She has her primary 
aims, which must not be set aside. Her revivals of vital, 
personal religion must ever be her glory and her joy. She 
must maintain these fundamental characteristics and at the 
same time advance her people in every thing connected with 
human progress. 



THE UNREST OF THE PASTORS; 



17 



It 

THE UNREST OF THE PASTORS. 

BY J. A. M. CHAPMAN, D.D. 

In a symposium in the Zion's Herald not long ago, made 
up of representative pastors of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, it was asserted that ecclesiastical politics existed in 
its ministry to an extent utterly inconsistent with the spirit 
of the sacred office. It was asserted, too, that a course of 
management involving all the questionable, if not disreputable, 
methods that characterize secular politics is pursued by 
many preachers to obtain official positions. Whether the 
degree to which this spirit exists was overstated I will not 
take it upon myself to decide. But that it exists is too 
obvious to be questioned by any intelligent observer, and 
that it sullies the reputation and lessens the efficiency of the 
ministry is equally evident. 

This is a matter of profound interest to the Church, for 
her future success will largely depend upon the character of 
her ministry, and she is deeply concerned in maintaining the 
highest type of ministerial purity. In the present paper I 
propose to discuss the pastorate in some of the aspects that 
bear more or less directly upon this subject. 

The pastorate is a divine appointment, and this differen- 
tiates it from any other office to which a man can be called. 
The pastor's commission and essential equipment for this work 
are directly from God. No man can take the office upon him- 
self. No Church can impose it. Until a man recognizes 
God's voice calling him to this holy office he has no right to 
enter it. It is not enough that he be a good man, endowed 
with all natural and acquired gifts, zealous in Chistian work 



18 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHUB OR 



and invited thereto by the Church herself. Nothing less 
than conscientious conviction, wrought in his own mind by 
the Holy Ghost, that God calls him to this service, that 
" woe is me, if I preach not the gospel," is a sufficient war- 
rant for its assumption. Nothing less than this will be suffi- 
cient to hold him to this work amid the hardships, sacrifices, 
and discouragements that attend it. Nothing will atone for 
the absence of this personal conviction of duty. 

It is to be feared that inefficiency and failure in preaching, 
a desire for official position in the Church, or an utter aban- 
donment of the ministry for secular pursuits often spring out 
of a radical defect at this point. We believe that in a cer- 
tain sense God calls, through natural ability, providential 
circumstances, and the leadings of his Spirit, all men to the 
mission in life he would have them fulfill. And we may not 
doubt that God calls some preachers from the pastorate to 
be bishops, secretaries of church enterprises, editors, presi- 
dents and professors in colleges and seminaries, and perhaps 
book agents. But not one of these has the same direct com- 
mission from the lips of the great Head of the Church for 
his secular work in the world, or official work in the Church, 
that the pastor has for his supreme office of winning sinners 
to Christ, and building up believers in Christ. Every other 
position in the Church, in so far as it differs from the pas- 
torate, involves matters pertaining to the administration of 
discipline and the prosecution of educational or philanthropic 
enterprises, and is subordinate and tributary to the work of 
the ministry. This is supreme and challenges the highest 
ambition of every pastor. 

There is a direct and intimate spiritual relation between 
pastor and people that exists nowhere else in the Church. 
A singleness of aim, a concentration of energy and effort, a 
personal authority and influence, that obtain nowhere else, 
characterize the pastorate. There is no higher or more re- 
sponsible position to which God calls a man ; and the man 



THE UNREST OF THE PASTORS. 



19 



who hears and obeys this call enters upon a service that will 
fill his heart, head, and hands, leaving no time or talent for 
any thing else. He, above all others, should be a man of 
one work. To secure the highest efficiency in this calling 
should be his one ambition. In no other way can he vindicate 
his right to be in it, and secure the confidence of the Church 
and world. No sadder sight do the angels of God look upon 
than that of a minister of Christ's Gospel trailing the robes 
of his high office in the dust of the financial and political 
arena, contending for worldly gain and place. And scarcely 
less deplorable is the condition of the preacher of the Gospel 
who falls so far below the New Testament ideal as to be- 
come restless in the pastorate and ambitious for official 
position in the Church. If there is one place in this world 
where the office should seek the man it is the Church of the 
living God. 

A chronic office-seeker ought to be debarred by the com- 
mon sentiment of the Church from all official positions in it. 
When a pastor allows himself to be a candidate in turn for 
all places at the Church's disposal, gladly accepting a low- 
er if he cannot obtain a higher, he proves himself unworthy 
of, if not unfit for, any. No man rises in the dignity or im- 
portance of his office when he leaves the pastorate for any * 
other position. 

The pulpit of the pastor is earth's highest throne, and the 
preacher should ascend it with spotless robes, and stand in it 
as free from the ambitions of the world as did his Master. 
Then, and only then, will the world recognize his authority 
to speak in Christ's stead. When men feel in the minister 
the grip of a miser's hand on 'change, the cunning of the 
office-seeker in the political field, or a " hail fellow well met " 
in the resort of pleasure, they will hardly recognize the 
presence of his Master when he appears in the pulpit. His 
words will carry little authority in denouncing worldliness, 
whether in money-getting or office-seeking, if his own robes 



20 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



are soiled with the dust of the same conflict. I have, how- 
ever, no word of criticism for the strictest economy and the 
wisest management and investment of the meager resources 
of the average pastor. 

Nor is it to be denied, though to be greatly regretted, that 
necessity may compel the pastor to supplement an utterly 
inadequate salary by business pursuits. But there is a world- 
wide difference between this and a spirit of worldliness 
which resorts to financial transactions for the sake of mere 
accumulation. And here let me add that I have no words 
in which to express my admiration for, and sympathy with, 
the noble men on the frontier, who, amid poverty and hard- 
ship, are prosecuting the work of the Christian ministry. 
These are the true successors of the apostles, and they de- 
serve a place in the bright constellation of the Church's 
worthies. This is the glory of our beloved Methodism ! All 
honor to these heroic souls ! 

It is true that the pastor should keep in personal touch with 
his people in all their interests, trials, and sorrows ; he 
should be one with them in all human relations, because he, 
better than they, can see how all these may be made pro- 
motive of their spiritual welfare. But he can do this only 
as he comes to them in an unworldly spirit and a Christ-like 
life. While he should keep himself intelligently conversant 
with their lives, their peculiar temptations and dangers, yet 
he will find readiest access to them only as he goes imbued 
with the sympathy and love that come from constant fel- 
lowship with Christ. Clean must be the hands that bear the 
vessels of the Lord's house. The holiness of his life must 
answer to the sacredness of his office. His authority to speak 
for Christ will be recognized and felt only as he bears the 
likeness of Christ. In sympathy, love, and tender concern 
he must be one with his people. And it is only through the 
unworldliness of his character that he can hope to lift them 
to his own plane. 



THE UNREST OF THE PASTORS. 



21 



Nor is the pastorate so limited in its sphere that it does 
not afford scope for the largest endowment of head and heart 
and the broadest culture. With the Bible as his text-book, 
Christ and him crucified as his message, and immortal souls 
as his care he will never lack subjects for the most impas- 
sioned eloquence or responsibilities of the most tremendous 
importance. And if he possesses executive ability, he will 
find ample opportunity for its exercise in the administration 
of discipline, and the superintendence of the financial and 
benevolent enterprises of the church of which he is pastor. 
No pastor ever had a surplus of talent of any kind for which 
there was no practical demand in his own church. 

There is no calling so many-sided, demanding a scholar- 
ship so varied and accurate, where intellectual strength and 
learning of every kind can be so constantly utilized as in the 
calling of the pastor. He has to deal with theology, philos- 
ophy, and science ; history, biography, and poetry ; ethics, 
politics, and finance ; the individual, family, and community; 
the past, present, and future ; God and man, time and eter- 
nity. Surely he may well exclaim: "Who is sufficient for 
these things ? " And though he may not be an original in- 
vestigator in these various departments of learning, yet, if he 
would command the respect of his hearers, he must have an 
accurate knowledge of the results of original investigation, 
and qualify himself by culture and grace to go from the serene 
atmosphere of the study to the pulpit, where he shall dis- 
course on the loftiest themes that engage the thoughts of 
men, angels, and God ; to the social means of grace where he 
shall exhort and encourage ; to the chamber of sickness and 
the home of death ; to family circles stricken with mis- 
fortune, there to give counsel and sympathy ; or to the plat- 
form to discuss public questions. To aid in moral reforms 
will leave little time or desire " to buy and sell and make 
gain," or to plan and intrigue for official position in the 
Church or out of it. 



22 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



Now, while none may realize this high ideal, it must be 
the aim of every man who is called to the Christian ministry, 
if he would be " a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, 
rightly dividing the word of truth." And success in God's 
measure is attainable by all. But it has its human conditions, 
and among them are the following: 

1. An adequate conception of the character of the work 
upon which he enters: that, in a special sense, he is called to 
it by God, and to God alone is responsible for the manner in 
which he performs it ; that not only " woe is me, if I preach 
not the gospel," but woe is me if I preach not the Gospel as 
God reveals it to me, and as he would have me preach it ; 
that in the highest sense there is a personal covenant be- 
tween God and himself ; that his chief mission is to be 
Christ's representative, to realize his life, and re-preach his 
Gospel, to stand before men in Christ's stead, and to be a 
perpetual reminder of Christ to them. It is sometimes 
charged that the General Conference is unjust to the pastors, 
in not more frequently rewarding fidelity here with official 
position ; but this thought springs out of a failure to appre- 
ciate the real character of the pastorate. There is no higher 
honor God or the Church can bestow upon a faithful pastor 
than to continue him in the pastoral relation. When the 
pastor makes or even regards his office as a stepping-stone 
to official position, he degrades it and limits his own useful- 
ness. Every true and intelligent pastor should feel it to be 
an affliction to be called to any office in the gift of the 
Church, and that he can obey the call only under the convic- 
tion of duty. All the ecclesiastical honor and authority that 
pertain to any official position in the Church are a poor com- 
pensation for the surrender of the intimate relations, the so- 
cial and spiritual fellowships, the atmosphere of confidence and 
love, the kind and courteous attention to himself and family, 
that gather about the pastorate. And this conception of its 
dignity and responsibility is a prerequisite to success in it. 



THE UNREST OF THE PASTORS. 



23 



2. The absolute surrender of all other ambitions. "This 
one thing I do," must be his motto. " I determined to know 
nothing but Christ and him crucified," must indicate delib- 
erate decision. Every thing must bow to this ; every thing 
contribute to it. The care of his body, the training of his 
mind, the culture of his tastes, the selection of the subjects 
he investigates, his intercourse with his people and the world, 
his social and literary recreations, in a word, his whole life 
must be polarized upon the line of his high calling. The 
conviction that a man gives himself wholly to the work of 
the ministry, that all he is is upon the altar for the glory of 
God and the welfare of his church, will win for him the con- 
fidence and co-operation of the Church. The Church and 
the world have little regard for a shallow ministerial sem- 
blance. But a healthy, robust, ministerial piety is every- 
where appreciated. Not by a clerical dress, but by saintly 
character and life the embassador of Christ should every- 
where be known. 

3. The absolute consecration of himself to this work. To 
win the highest success possible to the ability God has given 
him must be his aim. We are impatient of drones in any 
department of life, whether in the Church or world, and the 
Christian ministry has no use for them at all. If there is any 
position wherein persistent and unflagging energy are de- 
manded it is the pastorate. It may not be a man's fault if 
he fails in the law, in medicine, or business ; but it always is 
the man's own fault if he fails in the ministry. In his call 
to it he has a pledge of success in it. Every talent of head, 
heart, and life may be made to contribute to success, and the 
inevitable defects of natural endowment and personal culture 
may be supplemented by gracious attainments. When nature 
has been used to the utmost grace will always supply the 
lack. But let no man fancy that grace will atone for the 
want of personal effort or the waste of time in pecuniary 
pursuits or official ambitions. 



24 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



Few men are pre-eminently strong in every line of minis- 
terial work. But all may attain signal efficiency in some one 
or other line, and at the same time be useful in all. From 
experience and careful observation during nearly forty years 
in the ministry, I am persuaded that there are few men called 
to preach the Gospel who may not, by devotion to their work, 
make themselves highly acceptable to, if not earnestly sought 
by, the churches to which they may be sent. It is not in the 
power of bishops or presiding elders, even if they w T ere so 
disposed, to keep a man for any length of time from reach- 
ing his true level in the Christian ministry. And every true 
man would rather overflow in a lower, than prove an insuf- 
ficient supply in a higher, place of service. When a minis- 
ter proves himself worthy of a " good appointment " by abil- 
ity and devotion, the call to it will not be long delayed. If 
the time often worse than wasted in social gossip, telling an- 
ecdotes of a questionable character, intriguing for a call to 
certain churches by enlisting the aid of others, were spent in 
hard, honest work in the study and the social means of grace, 
we should hear less complaint about " want of appreciation " 
and partiality on the part of the appointing power. Success 
here as elsewhere has its price, and he who pays the price 
will have the success. But no man can keep the price and 
win the success. 

The unrest in the pastorate will never be removed and its 
highest efficiency attained until the ministers recognize the 
fact that it stands unrivaled in importance, honor, and re- 
ward, and that there is nothing higher to challenge the am- 
bition of any man in the Church militant ; that he can be 
elevated only when he is transferred from the pulpit of the 
Church on earth to a throne in the Church in heaven. To 
stand in the pulpit; to speak to dying men for God and plead 
with God for them; to walk among his flock a pattern of 
Christian character and life; to instruct the ignorant, reclaim 
the wandering, stimulate the indolent, encourage the dis- 



THE UNREST OF THE PASTORS. 



25 



hearkened, succor the tempted, help the perplexed, comfort 
the sorrowing, attend to the sick and dying, bury the dead ; 
to be the recipient of the most sacred confidences of per- 
sonal, domestic, and business life; to mingle in the most in- 
timate felicities as well as the sorrows of the family; to train 
childhood, counsel maturity, and cheer old age — this is the 
work of the pastor, and success in it is the highest honor 

that crowns a human life, 
2 



26 



PRESENT STATE OF TUE CHURCH, 



III. 

THE PATRONAGE OF THE GENERAL CONFER- 
ENCE. 

BY JOHN A. WRIGHT, ESQ. 

I hesitate to discuss a subject that peculiarly affects the 
ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as they are the 
recipients of its patronage, for two reasons. The first, that 
it is not easy to place one's self in the position of a person 
of another class ; and second, that according to The Christian 
Advocate I have no "rights" in the Church, my relation to 
it being more one of an attache with certain privileges and 
duties. The questions, how far the organization of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church meets the demands of a true Church 
of Jesus Christ, and the relation of the members to such a 
Church, deserve a consideration that cannot be given in this 
paper. 

The patronage of the governments of the world during all 
the ages has been used as a means of securing and retaining 
power. Every page of history is full of its demoralizing 
influence, of its liability to lower the standard of character, 
to blunt the conscience, to harden the heart, and deaden the 
sensibilities. Its degrading tendencies are evident in every 
city, town, county, and State in this country ; its evil hand 
is felt in every election and in much of our legislation. A 
desire for office seems to be a prominent characteristic of 
man, whether it is rooted in love of ease, position, money, or 
power. The leaders of men understanding this feeling have 
in all times used it, and are now using it to accomplish their 
purposes. Strong efforts have been made by the more ad- 
vanced nations to remedy the evils of patronage, by civil 
service and other reforms, but with little success. 



PATRONAGE OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE. 



21 



This use of men through the power of patronage has not 
been confined to the secular governments of the world, nor to 
political or social parties. It has been present in the churches 
from the beginning, and through it the cause of Christ has 
suffered from the selfishness and corruption which accompany 
the distribution of place. From the assumption of power 
by a bishop of Rome, through the history of the churches 
to the present day, their control by the ministry has been 
largely due to a judicious administration of patronage. A 
chief impediment in the way of a broader and more script- 
ural construction of the governments of the churches is found 
in the fear that such reconstruction would interfere with the 
distribution of patronage, the ability of the leaders to con- 
tinue their control, and the loss of the prestige that accom- 
panies place and power. 

The best protection to civil governments against these evils 
is found, first, in the freedom of the press. No matter how 
great the influence of partisan zeal, it is affected by and pays 
deference to public opinion in the distribution of the patron- 
age of a government, and this public opinion can only be 
formed through the instruction given by a free press. The 
second safeguard is the establishment of proper methods of 
selecting the persons to fill the various places. An encour- 
aging evidence of the power of public opinion is found in 
the higher character of the government appointees of the 
leading nations, and more particularly of the appointments 
by the governors of the States and the presidents of the 
United States. 

A Fees Peess. 

A free press is accepted by all peoples as their surest de- 
fense against the encroachments of power. The freedom to 
discuss the various problems that affect their interests, the 
ability to exercise through the press a strong influence upon 
the acts of rulers or the legislation of their representatives, 



28 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



the educational results of intelligent discussion, the ability 
of the people to reach each other through the press, and to 
prepare the way for any combined action, these are all 
evidences of an advanced civilization, and are in harmony 
with the teachings of Christ. By reason of such freedom 
nations develop at all points. A muzzled press is an emblem 
of tyranny ; it denotes the presence of either a debased people 
with its manhood lost, or the superior power of a class united 
together, and made omnipotent through the power of patron- 
age. The Church of Christ should be the exponent of all 
the principles that raise and develop men, and should be the 
chief supporter of the doctrine of a free press for Christian 
people. It is an important fact that no Christian or pagan 
nation of any position owns and controls the press within its 
limits. There may be restrictions on its utterances, but 
practically it is free in the discussion of all questions that 
affect the interests of the nation. The same may be said of 
the Roman Catholic, the Greek, the English, the Presbyterian, 
and the Baptist Churches ; and, in fact, of all the Churches 
except the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. 

It may be asked, Why do the lay members of that Church 
consent to such bondage ? The only answer is that the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church is a close corporation represented by 
the ministry. To perpetuate their power they must control 
the press of the Church The members are helpless to cor- 
rect this, as they have no inherent "rights" in the manage- 
ment or legislation of the Church, and are practically unrep- 
resented in its councils. It is no wonder, then, that they are 
indifferent to the government of the Church at large, and 
are only held to it by its religious teachings, its peculiar serv- 
ices, its usefulness as a promoter of the cause of Christ, and 
their congregational affinities. The progress of any political 
organization or Church depends on the intelligence not only 
of its leaders, but of the people. Revolutions and Church 
secessions are the work of ambitious leaders of rivalries of 



PATRONAGE OF TEE GENERAL CONFERENCE. 29 



classes, not of the masses. True development comes from 
the full expression of opinion. Perhaps the greatest danger 
to the prosperity and usefulness of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church is in this control of its press by means of an official 
system. -Dr. Curry wrote on this subject as follows (Meth- 
odist Itevieio, April, 1886) : "We once heard the Rev. Dr. 
Olin remark — speaking thoughtfully but not complainingly — 
that the use of an exclusively official newspaper by our peo- 
ple was full of peril. Court journals and official bulletins 
arc not the best vehicles for political intelligence, and espe- 
cially not for the discussion of either the principles of gov- 
ernment or the acts of the administration. And although 
the position of an official editor is as free as he dares to make 
it, there is still the liability that his environment will circum- 
scribe the free expression of his convictions, and so compel 
him to fall below his own best possibilities ; in short, to be- 
come not a free inquirer and critic, but an advocate, a mar- 
tinet rather than a free lance." 

If there was in the early days of the Church a necessity to 
provide books and papers for the people because no publisher 
would take the risk of their publication, that day has long 
since passed, and there now is no necessity either for mammoth 
book concerns, which in their nature are corrupting, and 
especially as they tempt the ministry through an annual dole 
given to their Conferences ; nor for official church papers, 
which if they do not absolutely control the opinions of the 
members do unduly influence them by the presentation of 
but one side of a question and by preventing full discussion. 
As a Church increases in numbers and influence its members 
should be told the whole truth about its affairs ; this is im- 
possible under an official system, with the editors chosen 
from a caste or a class. 

Methods of Distributing Patronage. 

The present method of electing the editors of the official 
press, in the open body of a General Conference, is in viola- 



so 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



tion of all sound judgment. No body of nearly four hundred 
shareholders would choose an editor of a secular paper with- 
out nomination, or inquiry by a committee as to the fitness 
of the applicants. How unwise, then, is it for a General 
Conference to select the editors of its papers and Review 
without examination of the ability or adaptation of the 
candidates. It is absurd to have delegates come from China, 
India, California, or from the Southern colored Conferences 
to elect the editors of the Northern Christian Advocate or 
of the Review. It might be prudent that the Church should 
retain one paper for the purpose solely of printing official 
documents for the information of the people at large, just as 
it has the missionary magazine and Sunday-school, tract, and 
other periodicals ; but the rest of the family of Advocates 
should be given up. 

The existence of papers in many of the Conferences indi- 
cates that, in the absence of an official press, all the papers 
would be published that are required by the people, and as 
the editors and owners would be dependent on their circula- 
tion for profit, a much abler style of newspapers would be 
published, and the people would have better reading and 
more wholesome instruction. The failure of the official press 
to provide the church members with proper reading is shown 
by their circulation, which is said not to exceed two hundred 
thousand copies per week. But if the General Conference 
is not willing to go this far, its next best policy would be to 
place the local Advocates under the control of local commit- 
tees, composed of a majority of business men, with power to 
select the editors thereof, and to charge the Book Committee 
with the duty of electing editors of the New York Advocate 
and of the Review, and to furnish the necessary money to make 
all first-class publications. Either of these plans would take 
from the General Conference one of the leading sources of 
demoralization. 

The same remark is true of the inability of a large body 



PATRONAGE OF THE 



GENERAL CONFERENCE. 



31 



of delegates, from all parts of the world, to properly choose 
the secretaries of the Missionary, Church Extension, Educa- 
tion, Sunday-school and other boards, and the Book Agents. 
Such representatives and officials should be carefully selected, 
and this can only be done by the managers of those boards. 
The present method of selecting their managers, by com- 
mittees appointed by the bishops, with a bishop as chairman, 
subject to the approval of the General Conference, is in the 
right line, and the probabilities are that the committees thus 
selected are neither applicants for place nor political wire- 
workers. The adoption of this suggestion would introduce 
into the work of the boards better system, more direct re- 
sponsibility, and greater efficiency, while it would relieve the 
General Conference from another disturbing element — the 
scramble for these offices. 

It must be confessed with sorrow that the choice of the bish- 
ops has to be treated as one of the means of distributing the 
patronage of the Church. To make the selection of a minister 
to fill this responsible office one of bargaining, of exchange of 
votes, of political intrigue ; to introduce it into the election 
of delegates (ministerial and lay) to the General Conference, 
would not be accepted as possible were not the evidence of 
the facts well known. These machinations not only degrade 
the Church, but they lower the quality of the delegates 
chosen to the General Conference, and of the men selected 
as bishops and lower officers. And no greater blow can be 
given to the usefulness of our Church than a continuation of 
the scheming to secure official places, which has been so ap- 
parent in the last two General Conferences. That the 
present method of electing the bishops gives no security for 
the fitness of those elected to fully meet the demands of 
their position must be acknowledged ; that the representa- 
tive position of the bishops before the world requires the 
highest standard of qualification cannot be questioned ; that 
learning, wisdom, prudence, a keen sense of justice, deep 



32 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CEDE Off. 



sympathies, executive ability, acceptability as preachers, and 
sanctified piety should characterize the bishops will not be 
disputed. The expectation that a mixed body of nearly four 
hundred delegates, from many parts of the world, can, with- 
out systematic inquiry, make a selection of men who possess 
these qualities is an absurdity. 

With the increase of the Church and the widening of its 
interests it becomes more important that every precaution 
should be employed in the selection of these officers. 
The first requisite to a proper choice is a nomination with 
subsequent careful inquiry. Let nominations for bishops be 
made to the two bodies, ministers and laymen meeting 
separately ; let joint committees be appointed for examina- 
tion ; let a report be made to each body ; let there be a free 
comparison of views and a two thirds or three fourths vote 
of each body required, and the probabilities are that the 
result would be worthy of these bodies and of the Church. 
The men thus selected as bishops would go before the Church 
and the country with a proper indorsement ; their election 
would not be smirched with the charge of bargaining or the 
use of undue personal influence. If this or some more care- 
fully guarded plan could be adopted, and if the suggestions 
as to the selection of editors, book agents, and secretaries 
were approved, the Church might breath more freely. A 
great weight would be removed, a constant dread of impend- 
ing disgrace would vanish, the standard of the delegates to 
the General Conference would be improved, the offices would 
be held by men suited to their demands, and the Church 
could point with proper pride to the efficiency of her plans 
for carrying on the work of the Master. 

Another argument in favor of change in the method of 
selecting officers is to be found in the fact that a majority of 
delegates in the General Conference represents a small 
minority of the members, and that almost all the elections 
in the last two or three General Conferences have been 



PATRONAGE OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE. 



33 



undoubtedly carried by the votes of this minority, which is, 
it will be granted, the least prepared for the performance of 
this duty. This undue power of a minority arises from the 
representation of the mission and colored Conferences. Such 
inequality of representation is a standing danger and should 
be remedied. It is a simple wrong that the older Confer- 
ences, which have a large membership, ministerial and lay, 
should have a smaller relative representation than Conferences 
in India, China, Germany, or Sweden, or the colored Confer- 
ences in the South, and that the policy of the Church should 
be under the control of these representatives. Therefore it 
is urged that the changes here suggested in the method of 
filling the various offices should be adopted as a measure of 
prudence and safety to the Church. 

With the removal from tlie General Conferences of the 
intriguers and place-hunters, by the destruction of their 
occupation and hopes, there would be a better chance for the 
consideration of the real interests of the Church, and the 
representation of the laity and ministry could be placed on 
a proper basis ; the laity could be made responsible for 
conducting and supporting the various interests of the 
Church. The close corporation character of the society 
would be dropped as unfitted for the work of a Christian 
body, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, doubly armed 
and equipped in the combined efforts of its members and 
the ministers, could then go forth and do its full work in the 
vineyard of the Master. 
2* 



34 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



IV. 

A REVIVAL OF BIBLICAL PREACHING THE 
PRESENT NEED OF METHODISM. 

BY GEORGE E. CEOOKS, D.D. 

It is repeatedly said that the great Methodist preachers of 
the past generation have left no successors. If this be true, 
it is a mortifying fact. The Gospel which they preached is 
ours too. In nothing has Methodism varied so little as in its 
system of doctrinal ideas. There has not even been a sug- 
gestion of heresy. If an intense conviction of the reality of 
the supernatural marked the preaching of our j)redecessors 
it no less marks ours. That man is a great sinner, and that 
man has a great Saviour, are the burden of our message, as 
they were the burden of the message of our fathers. We 
emphasize the "now" of the accepted time just as they 
did. Still we do not produce the same effects. Congrega- 
tions do not now hang breathless upon the words of their 
ministers. Methodist preaching tends to become tame and 
absolutely vapid. Surely the old order changeth ; nay, has 
changed, and we find ourselves in a new world. 

There has been a corresponding change in the people. As 
Bishop Foster well says in his introduction to the life of Dr. 
Durbin : " The country was new. The age was uncritical. 
The pulpit was the great throne of power. The pen and 
printed page were less in use. The people were eager to 
hear. Impassioned speech thrilled and swayed the vast, ex- 
pectant multitudes who rushed for miles to hear the famous 
orator. There was eloquence in the air." But this state- 
ment, true as it is, must not bo allowed to pass on from us 
without qualification. Bishop Simpson produced some of his 
greatest efforts as late as 1883, and Bishop Foster is himself 



BIBLICAL PREACHING. 



a fine example of the old-time power. Congregations, if not 
as susceptible as formerly, are still susceptible ; if they do not 
now respond as quickly as they once did to fervid appeal, they 
do respond, especially if the fervor be of a genuine quality. 
The times have indeed changed, but the Gospel and human 
nature are still the same. 

Let us, then, analyze the methods of our fathers, and, if we 
can, follow them into their work-shops. First of all, they 
were not pastors, but evangelists. Their stay with a congre- 
gation was short ; at most for two years, often for only one. 
Their message consisted in a few simple propositions, but in 
these was the pith of the Gospel. To urge men to be 
instantly saved, and to urge them when saved to perfect 
holiness in the fear of God, completed the preacher's duty. 
Texts and illustrations varied, but these were the substance 
of the sermons. The polemics were for the most part directed 
against Calvinism, for which Fletcher's Checks furnished 
an ample armory. Emory's Defense of Our Fathers enabled 
them to meet the impugners of Methodist Episcopacy. Not 
being men of the closet, they did not study the Bible in the 
comprehensive mode which is indispensable to a pastor who 
ministers to the same people for a series of years. 

How far they availed themselves of skeletons already made 
it u not easy to determine. We do know that the use of 
such helps was not then a reproach as it is now. Charles 
Simeon's twenty volumes of skeletons were prepared for 
Church of England clergymen. His aim was to lead them 
away from copying other men's sermons outright to this via 
media, wherein the preacher, with a skeleton and filling 
largely provided, was to try to put in a little filling of his 
own. Or, if I may venture a metaphor, when he plunged 
into deep water he was provided witli Simeon's life-preserver. 
To make this clear I will quote from the preface to this 
bulky work : " It has sometimes been recommended to the 
younger clergy to transcribe printed sermons for a season, 



36 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



till they shall have attained an ability to compose their own. 
And it is to be lamented that this has been too strictly fol- 
lowed ; for when they have once formed this habit they find it 
very difficult to relinquish it ; the transition from copying to 
the composing of sermons is so great that they are too often 
discouraged in their first attempts and induced, from the diffi- 
culty they experience in writing their own sermons, to rest 
satisfied in preaching those of others." 

Bishop Simpson, in his Yale lectures, says that when a 
young man he was offered a volume of skeletons by an elder 
preacher, but that he shrank from the suggestion of its use 
with horror. The incident shows, however, that such use 
was not unknown. Away back years ago one of the Methodist 
Book Concerns published several volumes of sermon skel- 
etons. I think that the appropriation of such helps was ac- 
cepted as a matter of course. Dr. Roche, in his life of Dr. 
Durbin, says, with entire truth: "The passage that we have 
heard quoted from Bascom more than any other is from S. 
T. Coleridge." It was framed by Coleridge out of the im- 
agery of the eightieth psalm, and for a short passage is one 
of the first of its kind in our language. In his preface to 
his volume of sermons, Bascom apologizes for the unacknowl- 
edged appropriation of so much matter from other men. He 
say T s frankly that " the haste and urgency incident to sudden 
occasion " permitted no other course, and that u he always 
considered himself at school to whatever book or mind or 
other means of preparation might be found in his way." 

How could this man of the frontier have produced him- 
self the splendid bursts of rhetoric which are possible to 
those only who enjoy the quiet and leisure of the study ? I 
have in my possession what I believe to be the bulk of Dr. 
Durbin's sermon skeletons. His mind was eminently fertile; 
in originality he was easily the first of our great preachers. 
When I heard him as a student I could trace the influence 
of Bishop Butler's " Analogy " upon his preaching, I have 



BIBLICAL PREACHING. 



37 



always understood that when the sheets of Professors Mc- 
Clintock and Blumenthal's translation of Neander's Life of 
Christ were passing through the press Dr. Durbin had the 
use of them, and framed therefrom the masterly sermons on 
Christ which were a feature of his pastorate in Philadelphia. 
All this matter was fairly used, for Dr. Durbin was a man 
of scrupulous integrity ; but I adduce these facts to show 
how casual were the helps on which the preachers of that 
time laid hold for the securing of sermon stuff. I verily be- 
lieve that John Wesley expected little more than that his 
helpers, with the addition of their personal experience, should 
give to the people the substance of his published sermons. 
Jay's Morning and Evening Exercises were a store-house 
from which many preachers drew, some legitimately, some 
otherwise. 

I would not have it supposed for a moment that there 
were no men of originality in this company of heroes. Asa 
Shinn wrote a work on " Salvation," the substance, no doubt, 
of his sermons, when as yet writing by Methodist preachers 
was rare. Snethen's son says of his father that he left be- 
hind him in manuscript eleven folio volumes of six hundred 
pages each. But the manner in which the question of lay 
delegation was first handled shows how imperfect was the 
study of the New Testament, the only standard of appeal. 
To affirm that lay preachers, irregularly ordained, had a di- 
vine right to the exclusive government of the Church was 
astounding ; but that was affirmed, and in good faith. In 
the controversy with the Episcopalians the books named by 
Mr. Wesley were appealed to, especially Lord King and 
Stillingfleet's Irenicum. What had satisfied Mr. Wesley 
satisfied his people. Durbin had a passion for natural sci- 
ence, and edited Goode's JBooh of Nature, adding some notes 
to the text. But when we remember that in 1820 Dr. Dur- 
bin was learning English grammar on horseback, and that in 
1832, on the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of 



33 



PRESEXT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



"Washington, he preached a sermon of such extraordinary- 
power that he was advised by a senator never to preach, 
again, we must see that for him regular acquisitions in any 
knowledge, especially in biblical study, were out of the ques- 
tion. As it was with him so was it with his associates. 

Unquestionably it was a period' of inspiration, and in- 
spiration did for the preachers more than culture ever could. 
The very opposition made by culture to our fathers only 
threw them more upon the resources of the spiritual energy 
which so mightily stirred them. The phrases universally 
prevalent among Methodists, "God-made ministers" and 
" man-made ministers," show the feeling of the time. Every 
minister was judged by the tokens of power which proved 
him to be called of God. But periods of inspiration are 
brief. They serve the divine purpose of initial impulse, and 
then men are left to the ordinary administration of God's 
providence and grace. Training must then do, by slow 
processes, what inspiration once did by processes almost in- 
stantaneous. The meagerness of culture, which the splendor 
of the early enthusiasm may have hid, becomes apparent. 
Men return to their ordinary stature, and are more suscep- 
tible to the action of purely personal motives. The same 
soldiers who, when the battle is raging, will face death in a 
thousand forms, can, when the victory is won, fall into petty 
quarreling over the spoils. So when a period of spiritual 
enthusiasm is past not only will the defects of knowledge 
become visible, but the purely personal element will count 
for more in the conduct of the body of spiritual workers. 

We may as well acknowledge the facts. The old spirit is 
passing away. We are no longer such a body of self-sacrific- 
ing evangelists as we were. Our men no longer speak in the 
pulpit as if God were talking directly to the people through 
them. No man now says, " Here am I ; send me ; " rather 
the word is, " Here am I ; send me — but to as good a place 
as I have now." The Church is regarded as an estate, the 



BIBLICAL PREACHING. 



title to the revenues of which is vested in the preachers. 
" You must not trench upon our estate " is as plainly said 
by every Conference to every other Conference, as if its 
feeling were expressed in this very formula. In my own 
Conference I have heard preachers described as "one thou- 
sand dollar men " and as " two thousand dollar men." And in 
my own Conference, too, I have heard another Conference 
upbraided because in an exchange of ministers the trade was 
not even. I state this fact not to comment on it, but simply 
to show that the old spirit is gone, that we are in a new era 
and must make provision accordingly. 

I think I have proved that in the period of our inspira- 
tion the resources of material for preaching w T ere scant at 
best, and that our men had to lay hold of such helps in this 
particular as came in their way. I think I have shown, too, 
that this defect was in part compensated, and in part con- 
cealed, by the tremendous energy with which they delivered 
their message. To speak in homiletical phrase, in invention 
they were deficient, but in delivery they left nothing to be 
desired. Above all, they had the masterful ideas of our sweet 
evangelical theology — a theology which at once comes home 
to the bosoms of men. But these ideas, precious as they 
are, had before their day been suffered to pass out of sight. 
Most Christians believed that the Holy Spirit dwells in the 
Bible or somewhere in the Church, but of a Spirit ready 
to hear the cry of a penitent soul, and to come with instant 
relief, they knew nothing. We had, therefore, the advantage 
of appearing before men with thoughts as old as redemption, 
but new to the age. This advantage is, however, now gone ; 
the whole Christian world has learned the lessons we have 
taught, and shows as much zeal as we do in their diffusion. 
What, then, remains for us but to secure the resources of 
culture ; and especially to strengthen ourselves by increased 
devotion to biblical study? 

I am of opinion that in regard to preaching itself we are 



40 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



in danger of missing our way. We are ceasing to be evan- 
gelists ; we are learning to be pastors ; but we fail to see that 
in order to be pastoral preachers each one of us must acquire 
the gift of " opening the Scriptures " to the people. How 
much of our preaching does not open the Scriptures, but 
leaves the Bible as entirely a sealed book as it was when the 
sermon began ? Let me explain my meaning. Every theology 
tends to express itself in a few recognized formulas, and 
around these formulas the materials of preaching are natur- 
ally grouped. For those who originated the formula it is 
representative of the most earnest struggles of the soul after 
truth ; the expression of it is colored by the feelings which 
are a part of every such struggle. In process of time, how- 
ever, the formula becomes a commonplace. Men are educated 
to repeat it with but dim discernment of the fulluess of its 
contents. Its meaning is plain enough, but it does not strike 
its roots down in the soul, as it did in the soul of him who 
first proclaimed through it his faith in God. When John 
Wesley, upon the reading of the preface to Luther's Com- 
mentary on Romans, found by experience the meaning of 
justification by faith alone, all the memories of years went 
into his proclamation of it to the people. The hope deferred, 
the frequent fastings, the almost despair, the missing of the 
way, all were part and parcel of the meaning of the new 
truth to him. If we consider that for three generations we 
have been bringing men into the ministry whose sole busi- 
ness it was to proclaim these formulas, illumined, to be sure, 
by their personal experience, but without much thought of 
the independent study of Scripture beyond, we can easily 
guess the consequence. Mechanical repetition of old formulas 
makes mechanical preaching ; and this is true even if the 
preaching be doctrinally evangelical. Evangelical theology 
can claim no exemption from the vicissitudes common to hu- 
man thought ; it may become dry and barren of meaning to 
those who in its terms profess their faith. 



BIBLICAL PREACHING. 



41 



What, then, is our way of escape from this peril ? Or, 
how can we protect our preaching from becoming mechanical, 
by the thoughtless iteration of phrases which have been 
repeated ten thousand times ? I know of but one way, and 
that is the constant, the reverent study of Scripture. I do 
not mean by this the practice of hunting through the Bible 
for proof texts, but the habit of searching into it as a divine 
revelation. We may study the Bible in various ways ; we 
may look at it, as we usually do, from the point of view of 
our theological system, or we may explore it as the treasure- 
house of divine ideas, and only from the latter method can 
there come rich, suggestive preaching. 

I shall not soon forget a sermon which illustrates my point, 
delivered by the Rev. Dr. Vaughan, Master of the Temple, 
in London. The congregation worshiping in this venerable 
edifice is largely composed of lawyers ; in fact, the middle 
block of pews is reserved for them. Seated in one of these 
reserved pews on a Sunday morning of last summer I looked 
about me with curious interest. Before me, behind me, and 
beside me were trained men, men of brain. I will not dwell 
upon the accessories of the occasion which, no doubt, greatly 
helped the preacher ; the perfect rendering by the choir of 
Psalm cvii, with its oft recurring refrain : " O, that men 
would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonder- 
ful works to the children of men ; " the bronze effigies of the 
crusading knights lying with crossed hands as if in everlast- 
ing sleep ; in the area without the simple stone over Gold- 
smith's grave, and the thousand associations of thought woven 
out of the history of the past. These would put any stranger 
worshiping in this spot into a receptive mood. But to hear 
the Gospel preached from out of these surroundings with 
perfect simplicity was a delightful surprise. The text was 
from John xv, 14 : "Ye are my friends." The points were : 
1. A distinction drawn between the passion of love and 
friendship, to the advantage of the latter. 2. Christ's 



42 



PRESEXT STATE OF TEE CHURCH. 



capacity for friendship, and his denial to himself of many 
earthly satisfactions, but his acceptance of this. 3. We are 
his friends because he has told us all. " All things " he has 
heard of his Father he has made known to us. If he had 
hidden from us any thing which we ought to know we could 
not trust him. If he had practiced any reserve toward us 
we would still be servants. But he has been unreserved ; he 
tells us that we know all he was sent to reveal. 4. But there 
is much that we do not know. We are continually raising 
questions that we cannot answer; for example, the manner of 
our resurrection, its time, etc., much in relation to which we 
cannot help inquiring. 5. Christ explains himself : " I have 
told you all things which the Father commanded me to make 
known to you." All that, in his capacity as God's messen- 
ger, had been laid on him to reveal he had revealed. Noth- 
ing had been kept hidden. 

As far as I could I watched the faces of the men seated 
about me, and their faces wore a look which assured me that 
they were seeing Christ in a new and tender aspect, and that 
the preacher had opened the Scriptures to them. Four years 
ago I heard from Dr. Joseph Parker, of London, a sermon 
out of the Book of Job. He was preaching, I understood 
him to say, right through the Bible. Two years later I heard 
him again, and he had reached Hosea. Both sermons riveted 
the attention of nearly two thousand persons. Calling on 
him in the vestry of his church, he said to me: "If our 
Father has written a letter to us I see no reason why we 
should not read the whole of it." And I asked myself : 
" Why not?" Why should our Father's letter be read only 
in detached parts, and those parts read, too, with little regard 
to their connection and precise meaning? 

I think that for us Methodist preachers this reconsecration 
to Bible study is the one thing needful. Our handling of 
the stock commonplaces is very much the rattling of dry 
bones. We repeat the old formulas until they fall coldly on 



BIBLICAL PRE A CFIING. 



43 



the ear. The formulas are true, for they are biblical; but if 
we studied the Bible in them, and the Bible with them, they 
would have for us a new life. 

But there are two obstacles to the recovery of freshness in 
our preaching. One is our unsettled life. The itinerancy is 
an admirable training for a preacher up to a certain point. 
For a time it secures the advantage of enabling him to per- 
fect his sermons by a certain amount of repetition. While 
the mind is in a growing state, it offers peculiar facilities for 
growth. But at length its demands are satisfied and the 
preacher ceases to grow. He can meet the requirements of 
a brief pastoral term, and why should he aspire for more ? 
But our acquisitions, unless they are increasing, are, in fact, 
wasting away. The sermons which once were powerful lose 
their life ; they are dead matter to the mind. The trains of 
thought which led up to them and which gave them their 
vitality have faded away. They are repeated mechanically 
— that is, ineffectively. What is wanted is to put the preacher 
in a position where he will be compelled to be mentally active. 
The more the pastoral term is extended, the more a race of 
preachers mighty in the Scriptures will be developed. The 
short terms of pastoral service were admirable for evangelists, 
but they are a hinderance to men who could be and ought to 
be developed into powerful expositors of Scripture. Let the 
preachers, then, who love study and who will study the Bible 
expand, as they readily can, into powerful Gospel preachers. 

Another hinderance is the divided state of our minds. The 
best energies of our best men are not now directed to the 
attainment of supreme excellence in the pastorate. General 
Conference offices, secretaryships, agencies of all sorts are the 
objects of ambition to Methodist preachers. They who can- 
not aspire to very much can gain something for themselves 
by engaging in Conference politics. The making of Confer- 
euce tickets, the gatherings of cliques of followers, consume 
energies which, if devoted to preaching, would make men now 



44 



PRESENT ST A TE OF THE CHURCH. 



obscure, and fast becoming obscurer, illustrious. The pas- 
torate is not developed among us. For some great pastors 
and for some glorious scholars the episcopate would be a 
burial without the hope of a resurrection, but it would be 
hard to make the men of whom I say this believe me. 



LESSONS FROM THE WESLEY CENTENNIAL. 45 



V. 

THE CENTENNIAL OF THE DEATH OF JOHN 
WESLEY, AND ITS LESSONS. 

BY WILLIAM WHITE, ESQ. 

It is quite significant that little recognition has been taken 
by American Methodists of a fact which is so pregnant with 
possibilities of instruction and retrospective analysis as that 
of the centennial of the death of John Wesley. His life in 
all the philosophy of its history is yet to be written, and his 
place remains to be adequately assigned and set forth in 
both its secular and religious influences. The Puritan move- 
ment in the States is yearly commemorated by forefa- 
thers'-day dinners, and by the Sons of New England din- 
ners, with sound and unsound trumpetings of speeches, 
uttering in prose and in verse their praise of the pilgrim 
fathers ; of which oratorical displays the clerical tributes 
have been deemed the noblest. But the Methodists of 
these States have hitherto failed publicly to commemorate 
the fame and name of John Wesley, whose claims overtop 
those of any other man of his age, both in respect of the de- 
velopment of the religious life of the country and of its 
morals. Why an annual remembrance of him has not been 
had is probably due to the busy push of the ministry and 
Church, and the want of a leading spirit to inaugurate such 
an annual memorial. In these days it is to be gratefully 
acknowledged that Professor Phelps has done for Wesley 
and for Methodism that which has not before been so grace- 
fully done by ourselves. In his posthumous volume, My 
JSFote-Book, his chapter on " Methodism — Its Work and Its 
Ways," he has put the churches under obligation to him by 
his masterly analysis of Wesley's career and his encomiums 



46 



PEE SENT ST A TE OF THE CHURCH. 



upon the Methodist Church. I cannot resist saying that he 
presents questions full of meaning in these times as to what 
our Methodist future may be. 

The Reformation prepared the way for the exercise of 
faith in the atonement by Christ. Puritanism presented its 
questions of personal liberty and of the untrammeled exer- 
cise of one's own conscience. Wesley preached a full and a 
free salvation by repentance toward God and faith in the 
Lord Jesus. The word was proclaimed to the common peo- 
ple, who heard it gladly, and his influence extended upward 
through all classes of society. Pervading England, it crossed 
the waters to us, softening the rigor of New England creeds 
and uniting the people in brotherly love and mutual support. 
It swept through the land, and became the foremost influ- 
ence in forming the morals of the republic, and yet holds its 
place in the nation, as remaining in great measure true to its 
earliest teachings and its professions of faith. The fathers 
were possessed by a tenacity of belief respecting the Gospel 
they preached, and that they were called to preach it, which 
was well-nigh contagious in its influence; for the people also 
believed the word because it was attested by divine power. 

The ministry had its baptism of fire and the w r ord ran and 
was glorified; a devoted ministry inspired a devoted Church, 
and great was the number who testified of the power of the 
new life. No one heard the Gospel in the early days of 
Methodism without a thorough conviction of the fact that 
those who preached had a divine call ; added to this belief 
was the testimony of the ministers to the nobleness and dig- 
nity of the work they were engaged in. There was never 
more reverence paid to ministers than in those days, for the 
unselfishness of the men who preached not themselves, but 
Jesus and him crucified, was so manifest that they were re- 
ceived every-where as the angels of God. The measure of 
belief in the divine call became the measure of success; the 
man of the saddle-bags was content with his office and such 



LESSONS FROM THE WESLEY CENTENNIAL, 



47 



emoluments as in these days are by their successors deemed 
contemptible, even considering the question of relative 
values. They were content with food to eat, raiment to 
wear, oats for their horses, and souls saved. No wonder 
such enthusiasm awakened such responses ; no wonder there 
was so much joy in heaven! 

Another feature of early Methodism was this : men be- 
lieved in each other, respected each other, helped each other, 
and, what is sadly wanting in these later days, revered each 
other, especially those who were set over them. Simple 
manners, a plain Gospel directly proclaimed to all, a personal 
application of the Gospel themes to all, a volume of song 
but little less powerful and masterful than the word itself, 
directness of approach to the throne of grace, men talking 
to God as if seeing the invisible, and such a sense of the di- 
vine presence as ran often like a huge wave over the people, 
conversions of scoffers and grossly offensive sinners, were 
the characteristics of the ministry of the early days. So it 
came to pass that here in this Western continent, as in En- 
gland, multitudes thanked God for a personal experence, and 
they never tired of saying, singing, and shouting what God 
had done for their souls. Now we have at this centennial a 
Gospel demonstrated rather than a demonstrative Gospel ; 
then the people shouted, the converts shouted, the ministers 
sang their doxologies ; now we occasionally do so, but very 
rarely in the city full. Then a hearty " amen ! " from many 
a sincere soul was an inspiration to the minister; now he 
gets what he can from his skeleton or his written sermon. 
Then it was the highest privilege to proclaim the praises of 
the King of Israel ; now such things are indecorous. There 
has come over us a difference in the spirit of worship, for 
which no adequate reason may be assigned, save the alleged 
advance in intelligence and the increasing wealth of the 
Church. 

I think the great respectability of the pulpit has much to 



48 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



do with it. Respectability has placed environments about it 
which please neither the poor nor the rich. The former of 
our earlier days have become the latter class of to-day ; 
those who are yet poor are intelligent and expect to acquire 
wealth ; while those who are the most numerous, the middle 
class in our churches, despise most thoroughly the affecta- 
tions of the ministry. They never forget men who use them 
as ladders or as stepping-stones, nor forget their condescen- 
sion. The serious injury done to the ministry by even one 
man, who cannot or will not conceal his want of sympathy 
with the poor, is well nigh incalculable. The unerring 
estimate of him by the poor is not a desirable adjunct to his 
respectability or to his success. If any thing in this world 
will roll back upon us the triumphs of the past, it will be the 
inspiration of the many voices of the multitude singing again 
the songs of the Wesleys, and their shouts of glory unto Him 
who hath redeemed us all with the price of his own blood. 
The great want of the times, especially in our large cities, is 
pastors rather than preachers. The throbbing hearts of the 
masses are yearning for the word of God from those whose 
own hearts throb with the love of God and of their fellows; 
for the plain, unvarnished, divine word, the heaven-sent 
message from the lips of men whose love of and for them 
cannot be gainsaid, upon whose breasts they may lay their 
weary heads and find rest. The fathers had the confidence 
of the masses ; why may it not be so in these days, when the 
masses are dying for the living bread and human love? It is 
a very great pity that a minister in a large town or city 
should become eminently "respectable " rather than be known 
as a large-hearted enthusiast for the welfare of souls. The 
enthusiastic pastor puts his pews into the closest fellowship 
with the desk, and the church is irresistible. 

In New York city practically the work of Methodism has 
been an undoing. No intelligent sign of progress in adapta- 
tion of means to ends, no possible attempt to meet the 



LESSONS FROM THE WESLEY CENTENNIAL. 



49 



necessities of growth of population or changes of residence, 
below the line of Fiftieth street, has been made in twenty 
years ; and the little which has been attempted has failed of 
success, if any success was really expected. It has at all 
times, in this period, been possible to plant wisely and 
adequately endow a few churches which would have been the 
means of gathering in thousands where scores have not been 
reached. Even now, when other denominations are doing 
that which Methodism w T as and is peculiarly adapted for, we 
stand and look on. Another impediment in these days to our 
progress is the growing and painfully manifest irreverence 
bred in the Church. Ministers lead in this ; for during the 
last General Conference in New York city I heard, on many 
occasions, utterances of disrespect for ministers and bishops 
from the lips of ministers that would shame the purlieus of 
vice, not for very wantoness, but for harshness. Now, such 
words uttered in public by ministers show tendencies which 
by their very breathing contaminate. Intemperance of 
speech from such is as bad as intemperance of character ; the 
latter may be redeemed, the former goes on in widening cir- 
cles of evil. 

This is a growing vice, and is observed and commented 
upon by the pew, and reaches the very children, vitiating 
home teachings, lowering the standard of authority therein, 
and thus ripening a harvest for the devil to reap. Now, 
whether this pernicious evil is not fostered by the methods 
and vices attending elections to our General Conferences is a 
serious question to consider when professedly good men so 
far forget what they owe to the Church and to themselves. 
Evidently there is need to return to the former paths and to 
walk therein ; for if Methodism is to become again regnant 
in our large cities, the bonds between the pastor and the 
people must be more closely drawn together. 

To this end the abolition of class distinction in the 
churches is absolutely necessary. In the oldeli times it 
3 



50 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



would have been a nine days' wonder to talk of the capital- 
ization of a single pew at the rate of $1,600 to $3,200 for 
the edifice alone, and of $200 more assessed annually for 
carrying on the church. This was then the entire income of 
the wealthy, and such church enterprises were not thought 
of, and yet under the preaching of the fathers souls were 
saved when the Gospel was preached to plain folk in plain 
churches. Nor will it do to maintain the abominable misno- 
mer of mission churches any longer. Intelligence in poverty 
rebels because it is very sensitive upon this point. No 
further or greater proof of sincerity of desire to be of use 
to the class named can be furnished than that of the wiser 
and more wealthy remaining among them to aid, to counsel, 
to save them. And, whether it sounds strangely or not, min- 
isters are called to the same position. It is becoming more 
and more incumbent upon our bishops to see that fewer mis- 
takes be made in the future in their appointments to churches 
in our large cities, where the greater and wiser qualities of 
ministers are needed to insure success. It is true, and has 
been true for too long a time, that pecuniary considerations 
have been at the root of many refusals of ministers to do 
this service, to make sacrifices for the work of Christ. Too 
many have performed their work perfunctorily; have had no 
heart in it, no love for it ; have growled their acceptance, 
growled through their terms without growling one dollar 
more into their pockets, and changed stations without sav- 
ing a soul ! Such a legacy of administration is very un- 
savory to the masses, not only failing to secure respect, but 
countervailing all Methodist influence in the neighborhood. 

God pity the minister sent to a church whose members are 
too refined to have the poor sit among them, wholly uncon- 
cerned as to those about them, and unable to know why it is 
a blessed thing to have "the poor always with you! " Some 
of this class of church members relegate their influence, and a 
little of their money, to mission churches, and their unadvised 



LESSONS FROM* THE WESLEY CENTENNIAL. 



51 



charities are like water spilled on the ground. And in this 
connection it may be said the " selection " of ministers is 
often as unwise as the location of the work assigned to them. 
Many who love the Church and pray, " How long, O Lord, 
shall the present state continue ? " think, that the evils of the 
time are to be found in the ill-concealed dissatisfaction of many 
of the ministers with their work ; a feeling of unrest which 
seeks .relief in employment, shall I say of a secular or semi- 
secular character, or in something or any thing else than the 
regular duties of the pastorate ? And as the opportunities 
become fewer the contest becomes greater to obtain them, 
and to make further occasion to provide new " asides." And 
so the matter becomes an engrossing one, to the damage of 
the influence and the success of the minister as to his regular 
work in every case. A vaulting ambition is not a qualifica- 
tion for success in preaching ; a worldly ambition is not an 
evidence of the genuineness of a call to the ministry by the 
Holy Spirit. Quite the contrary, and the people see it. And, 
further, the intelligence of the Church bears witness that it 
is not slightly affected by such recreancy ; for when it is 
alleged that the pew requires more onerous and learned prep- 
aration for preaching on the Sabbath than any pastor can 
afford to give, or is able to give, then we reply we are hungry 
for the simple preaching of the word, our children wait for 
it, our neighbors would throng to hear it, but cannot and 
will not be satisfied with stones. 

The removal of c?/scontent is to be achieved by the in- 
coming of a spirit of content, and disaffection by redoubled 
effort to achieve success in the solemn calling of the ministry. 
In other words, we need a revival of the times and spirit of 
Wesley and Whitefield, and their coadjutors, and it is not im- 
probable or doubtful that many of their ways and methods 
are applicable and available in these times. And even if 
the serious innovation of the removal of the pastoral time 
limit in our larger cities be required, and if it also appears 



52 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCB. 



that the work can be better carried on by the co-operation of 
two pastors in one charge, let us accept the situation, pro- 
vided that success therein, anywhere and every-where, 
be the condition thereof, and the survival of the fittest 
be gladly, heartily recognized. Any thing which may tend 
to save souls — preaching them to the cross, singing them 
to Jesus, loving them to Calvary by hand-to-hand or house- 
to-house appeals — will be gladly welcomed in New York and 
placed upon sufficient foundations ; but let office-seekers and 
malcontents apply elsewhere. 

Indeed, at this anniversary date there could be no nobler 
memorial offered than to organize in New York, Boston, 
Philadelphia, Chicago, such churches for such effective work, 
furnished with adequate Sunday-school rooms, kindergarten 
schools, and social provisions. These would be a proof of 
sincerity, and an acceptable offering to the masses, made by 
the old time love and heartiness of Methodism, with free 
sittings for all who will come. 



EFFECT OF INCREASED WEALTH. 53 



VI. 

THE EFFECT OF INCREASED WEALTH UPON 
AMERICAN METHODISM. 

BY ENSIGN M'CHESNEY, D.D. 

In July, 1789, less than two years before his death, John 
Wesley uttered the following memorable words : " The 
Methodists grow more and more self-indulgent because they 
grow rich. Although many of them are still deplorably 
poor (' tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of 
Askelon ! '), yet many others in the space of twenty, thirty, or 
forty years are twenty, thirty, yea, a hundred times richer 
than they were when they first entered the society. And it 
is an observation which admits of few exceptions, that nine 
in ten of them decreased in grace in the same proportion as 
they increased in wealth. Indeed, according to the natural 
tendency of riches we cannot expect it to be otherwise. 
But how astonishing a thing this is ! How can we under- 
stand it? Does it not seem (and yet this cannot be) that 
Christianity, true scriptural Christianity, has a tendency in 
process of time to undermine and destroy itself ? For 
wherever true Christianity spreads it must cause diligence 
and frugality, which in the natural course of things must 
beget riches. And riches naturally beget pride, love of the 
world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity. 
Now, if there be no way to prevent this Christianity is 
inconsistent with itself, and of consequence cannot stand, 
cannot continue long among any people, since wherever it 
prevails it saps its own foundations." 

The sermon in which these words occur is published in 
his works, and bears the significant title of the " Causes of 
the Inefficacy of Christianity." Wesley had much to say 



54 



-PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



concerning wealth, its responsibilities, its perils, and its 
effects. Any one not familiar with his writings will be sur- 
prised, upon glancing over the table of contents in his vol- 
umes of sermons, and still more upon reading the sermons 
themselves, to find how much and what he said upon these 
topics. Here evidently was something in regard to which 
he felt deeply. 

This may be set down promptly by some as one of Wes- 
ley's mistakes. At present we are in no danger of ascribing 
infallibility to the founder of Methodism. Judging from 
certain indications infallibility has shrunken somewhat of 
late. If Methodists are not agreed as to the authority of 
Peter and Paul upon the proper position and relations of 
women, it is not to be expected that the authority of John 
Wesley upon any subject will be overestimated. And yet 
there remains enough of intelligent veneration for the man, 
and respect for his great abilities, to win for his words more 
than usual attention. Mr. Gladstone, in a recent article in 
the Nineteenth Century, refers to the passage above quoted 
with approval. At all events, it possesses historic interest. 
Has it for us, now after the lapse of a hundred years, any 
thing else ? " 

k It is certain that the wealth of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, to look no further, has greatly increased. This is 
true especially with respect to the last thirty years. To 
precisely what extent Methodists have become w T ealthy it is 
impossible to determine. We know, however, that this 
period has been one of unparalleled material prosperity for the 
entire country. During the first twenty years alone of this 
period the wealth of the United States increased 170 per cent. 
Numerically our Church has increased somewhat, though not 
much more rapidly, than the entire population during these 
thirty years. There are also indications of growth of wealth 
in our denomination during this period. For example, the 
estimated value of churches and parsonages increased in 



EFFECT OF INCREASED WEALTH. 



55 



this time about 150 per cent. ; the contributions to our 
Missionary Society increased about fourfold. These and 
other facts that might be cited show — what does not need 
to be proved — that within recent years Methodists have 
grown in wealth as well as in numbers. Whether in wealth, 
as well as in numbers, we have kept pace with the entire 
country is an open question. Probably, however, the mem- 
bers of our Church have not fallen very much, if at all, be- 
hind the rest of American society in this respect, but have 
partaken to a fair extent in the general prosperity. Evi- 
dently the Methodists of, the present generation, in compar- 
ison with those in the preceding, are rich and " increased 
with goods." 

How about the rest of the historic description from which 
these words are quoted ? Has Laodicean lukewarmness come 
with more than Laodicean wealth ? What has been the act- 
ual effect of this greatly enlarged material prosperity ? This 
plainly is not a question to be answered in an off-hand or 
wholesale manner. 

It is easy to see certain marked advantages thus gained. 
The woi-k of the Church has been enlarged and strengthened 
in important directions through enlarged financial resources. 
Schools and colleges have been founded, endowments in- 
creased. The benevolent work of the Church has been ex- 
tended. Churches have been built and congregations gathered 
where otherwise it would have been impossible. In the older 
communities churches have been improved, or new and often 
noble structures erected. More liberal support has been 
furnished to the ministry ; though (let us be thankful) the 
time has not yet come when any man of sound judgment wall 
enter the ministry of our Church to make money. 

There has also come, as another good result, an increase in 
the average of intelligence and refinement among Methodists. 
The number of those liberally educated has grown. We are 
represented more largely in the so-called " learned profes- 



.56 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



sions." Methodists share with others to an increased extent 
such advantages as may come from travel. Social contact 
and ' intercourse are also established for more of our 
Methodist families with others also representing the best 
culture. " The intimacy of friendly society " is by no means 
exclusively among ourselves. The circle has been widened, 
and drawn upon a somewhat different plane. Certain it is 
that this and other facts which I have named have tended to 
broaden the thought, quicken the intellect, and refine the 
tastes of the Methodist people. At all events, intellectual and 
aesthetic improvement have come with the increase of riches. 

Closely allied to this is another fact which has some ad- 
vantage. Methodism has become a more powerful factor in 
social life, and in the ecclesiastical world. It is not solely 
on account of the good that Methodism has accomplished and 
is accomplishing, nor chiefly because of our numerical 
strength, that none but ignorant persons, and few even of 
these, sneer at Methodists. Much wealth atones for much 
Methodism in the eyes of a wealth-worshiping world. More- 
over, the religious denomination that has wealth enough to 
do great things and does them, the denomination that con- 
tains wealthy and influential people, will receive some recog- 
nition not otherwise accorded by other denominations. The 
Salvation Army is sometimes untruthfully likened to the 
early Methodists. But let the Salvation Army keep on in- 
creasing in numbers, and let a marked number of its 
adherents become wealthy, and then the good it may ac- 
complish will not only be tolerated, but generally rejoiced 
over. "Hallelujah Jack" and "Shouting Sal" will find 
their army more respected because converted Croesus occa- 
sionally marches with them. 

Wealth certainly has its advantages of greater or less 
reality. But what, if any, are the disadvantages ? Has the 
effect of increased wealth upon Methodism been altogether 
wholesome ? Has the event shown that the fear expressed by 



EFFECT OF INCREASED WEALTH. 



57 



Wesley* was well founded ? One effect has undoubtedly been 
the sending of a considerable number out from Methodist 
churches into other communions. It is not to be said, 
that as members of our Church become wealthy they be- 
come discontented with Methodism, though sometimes this, 
apparently, has been the case. But how about their sons 
and daughters? Many remain and are strongly attached to 
the Church in which they were born and reared. But many 
have left us. This is an old lamentation. Our losses have 
been largely from the wealthy families of our Church. 
Without attempting to inspect too closely the motives that 
have prompted these departures, it may be said that wealth 
in most cases has created the motives. Associations or the 
desire to foster associations imagined to be more harmonious 
with wealth have operated powerfully. Tastes, habits, 
modes of living have been formed that have made other 
communions more congenial than our own. Just what these 
tastes and habits are I need not say. Whether advantage 
has come to any one from following the inclinations thus 
established, is a question upon which Ave need not enter. 
Whether the increase of wealth has been sufficient to over- 
come, in any considerable measure, its own tendency at this 
point, whether it has so modified the character of Methodist 
church life as to make it more congenial to wealthy persons, 
is a question that may probably be answered in the affirma- 
tive. But it is certain, however, that in many cases wealth 
has served to dissolve the bond that should hold the 
members of our Church and their "descendants to Methodism. 

But the effect of increased wealth upon the spiritual life 
of the Church is the main consideration. Wesley spoke of 
" self-indulgence," " pride," " love of the world," in short, 
decline of spiritual life, as the evil effect that he dreaded. 
Our only way of judging in such matters is by manifesta- 
tions, symptoms. And however difficult and delicate such 
judgment must be, still it must be exercised. 
3* 



58 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



It is ever to be remembered that some, and in the Aggre- 
gate many, of the most conscientious and useful members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church are wealthy. It has been so 
in the past. In an increased measure it is so in the present. 
Every one acquainted widely with the laity of our Church 
knows this to be the case. " The saints," it has been truly 
said, " are not all among the poor." It is equally true that 
the poor, even the Methodist poor, are not all saints. Self- 
indulgence and love of the world find their exhibitions among 
the poor as well as the rich. Looking at such facts, one 
might conclude that wealth is a matter of indifference so far 
as its affecting spiritual life is concerned. But such a con- 
clusion would be hasty and unwarranted. It would be build- 
ing upon premises too narrow. Aside from all comparison of 
individuals and classes, there are important questions to be 
answered, and facts to be considered, which are related to 
the whole matter. 

Has not the increase of wealth brought a spirit into our 
church life, and been permitted to create conditions and fos- 
ter customs which have wrought to the detriment of Chris- 
tianity in both rich and poor ? Have not all classes of our 
members suffered in common, so that such comparisons do 
not prove as much as they might otherwise ? 

Something, doubtless, should be said in this connection 
about class-churches. Less, however, is needed upon this 
matter than is sometimes imagined. It is said that we have 
churches for the poor and churches for the rich. In what- 
ever sense this may be true, it is so only to a slight extent. 
In the most exact sense it is not true to any extent what- 
ever. This is a matter that pertains almost wholly to the 
large cities ; and these class-churches, in the culpable sense, 
exist in the imagination rather than in reality. It is true 
that increase of wealth has strengthened the contrasts be- 
tween churches, just as it has between the conditions of the 
people. It is true that there are churches attended chiefly 



'EFFECT OF INCREASED WEALTH. 



59 



by the poor, and others principally by the prosperous. But 
it is true, also, that, so far as this is the case, the situation 
has not been the outcome of any unworthy intention. The 
matter of location is powerful in this respect. The poor 
churches are mainly churches that at one time were not 
poor. Change of surrounding population has left them to 
be the resorts of poor people. Their expenses are met large- 
ly by the benevolence of those who live at a distance and 
worship in churches nearer home. In some cases they have 
been built in the midst of needy populations, not to keep the 
people from churches located elsewhere, but to win them to 
a place of worship somewhere. Whatever may be said about 
the disadvantage of this part of the situation, the intention 
back of it is certainly praiseworthy. And so far as we have 
ricli churches, " family churches," they have been built, not 
for the purpose of excluding any one, but for the purpose of 
meeting an obvious necessity. They are located in the 
midst of the abodes of the rich. They find some warrant in 
the fact that the rich need saving as certainly as the poor. 

They recognize the fact that the rich, in a terrible sense, 
may be reckoned among the " neglected classes." They may 
serve to illustrate the difficulty of which Christ spoke so 
strongly — that of winning rich sinners to submission to the 
Gospel. The task they face in this direction is no easy one. 
Is it a task that should be relinquished ? They hold to the 
Church Methodist families that otherwise would drift into 
other communions. The time and strength and money of 
the rich churches are given, in some cases, in a larger meas- 
ure to humane and religious work outside of the local church 
than to the local church itself. Such facts should not be 
left out of the account by those disposed to criticism. And 
yet there remains to some extent this separation between the 
rich and the poor. And this has been increased by increase 
of wealth among Methodists. And however we may ex- 
plain the precise way it has been brought about, this separation 



60 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



is not healthful. Certainly it is not the best way of bridg- 
ing the chasm that yawns between the Christian Church and 
large masses of our population. The problem that confronts 
some of our wealthy churches is that of winning the poor to 
their fellowship. This problem is being attempted; and if 
it compels changes of methods, and resort to methods addi- 
tional to those considered historically Methodistic, that is a 
matter not to be deprecated. 

An effect of the increase of wealth of far more consequence 
than the one just considered is the increased power of wealth 
over the thoughts and feelings and desires of our Church 
as a whole. The wealth of a former generation was a tame 
affair in comparison with the wealth of to-day. Wealth 
now displays its power and magnificence. The result is 
that if, on the one hand, we find, in an increased measure, 
riches with luxurious worldliness, on the other hand we find, 
also in an increased measure, poverty with envy and com- 
petency with discontent. "Plain living with high think- 
ing " is at a discount. There is almost every-where an ex- 
aggerated respect for wealth, and an insatiable desire for it. If 
this spirit were confined to those we call the children of the 
world, the situation would be bad enough; but it has invaded 
also what the world calls the Church. We cannot disguise 
the fact that Methodism is not singular in this respect. The 
glitter of wealth has also affected our vision; and right 
where we ought to find some preventive we find sometimes 
just the opposite. In the management of the Church wealth 
receives sometimes striking and unnecessary tributes. It 
cannot be denied that the opinion of almost any man is re- 
garded as having greater weight if it is backed by the pos- 
session of a large fortune. "Influential laymen" is com- 
monly the synonym for " wealthy laymen." It is not impos- 
sible to find posts of honor held by men whose chief, if not 
sole, title to influence is in the fact that they possess wealth, 
and are likely to keep on possessing it till they die. Wealth, 



' EFFECT OF INCREASED WEALTH. 



61 



of course, should interpose no barrier to recognition of abil- 
ity and usefulness. But just at present we are in no danger 
of mistake in this direction. Wealth, it is said, is itself often 
an indication of peculiar strength ; wealth is frequently 
united with wisdom and devotion. True enough; but there 
are also other combinations. In short, we need to be on our 
guard, lest by the spirit and conduct of our church life we 
preach the gospel of this world instead of the Gospel of 
Christ. Undoubtedly all classes in our Church are under 
strong temptation from the increased power of wealth to 
command human esteem. Does not the spiritual life of all 
classes show some effect of this temptation ? 

Another fact deserving attention is that increased wealth 
has considerably modified — not always for good — the social 
and religious customs of our church members. Again Ave 
touch a matter relating not solely to one condition of life 
represented by our Church. Wealth creates social oppor- 
tunities and multiplies social demands. The pleasures of 
prosperous society are varied and manifold. They are all 
the more dangerous in many cases because they are pure and 
refined — dangerous because there are too many of them. 
Not a few, first and last, are drowned in a sea of pure pleas- 
ures. Too many " engagements " compete with the most 
solemn of all engagements. Many resist the strain success- 
fully, but many fail. Take this with the fact that increased 
wealth continually demands still further increase. The 
standard of expenditure is raised perpetually. Thus busi- 
ness becomes exacting. The word " business " is a most im- 
posing term. Between business and pleasure the supreme 
business of life is often forgotten. All this is powerful by 
way of example. If the poor have not as many pleasures as 
the rich, they are learning to make the most out of such as 
they have. If the opportunities are not quite as choice, nev- 
ertheless they are not wholly discarded. 

The Discipline of our Church prohibits certain forms of 



62 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



pleasure. These attempts to restrict the pleasures of Meth- 
odists are the subject of much quiet discussion. To consider 
the matter here with fullness and precision is impracticable, 
and would be out of place. But it is worth noting that this 
legislation dates back less than twenty years. It was after 
wealth had considerably increased among our members. 
Did the increase of wealth create what was regarded as the 
necessity for this legislation ? One thing appears with some 
plainness: wealth is mightier than all our regulations. True 
it is, many of our most wealthy Methodists are scrupulous 
observers of the Discipline at this point. But the example 
of others of the same class is powerful in the opposite direction. 
And, say what we may about the wisdom of these regula- 
tions, they relate to things which, for the most part, do not 
comport with earnest piety; which tend in the main to de- 
feat the ends of spiritual living, and to destroy spiritual life. 
To what extent are these prohibitions a dead letter ? What 
has made them to any extent inoperative ? The answer to 
these questions may throw some light upon the effect of in- 
creased wealth upon Methodism. 

It is also to be noted that this period of increased wealth 
is also the period of modified church attendance. Through- 
out the country there has been during recent years a marked 
decline ill attendance, particularly upon the Sunday evening 
service. This change is most apparent in our great cities, 
where wealth is most abundant. And, on the whole, the 
wealthiest churches are the greatest sufferers from this cause. 
Methodist churches are probably neither better nor worse 
than others in this respect. This change is general, and has 
taken place largely within the last quarter of a century — 
that is, during the period of increased and increasing wealth. 
This is a suggestive fact, an interesting coincidence. Coin- 
cidence is not cause; but it may indicate the cause. We re- 
call Wesley's words, "self-indulgent." And we remember 
that if wealthy Methodists indulge themselves with an ab- 



EFFECT OF INCREASED WEALTH. 



63 



breviated Sunday programme, the poor are likely to follow 
their example. And what becomes, then, of prayer-meet- 
ings and protracted revival services ? What hope for such 
attendance as is requisite for the spiritual health and growth 
of the church ? 

And at this point appears another fact. This period of in- 
creased wealth is, in an emphatic sense, the period of profes- 
sional revivalists. It is the period of dependence upon imported 
spiritual energy, or something else ; something to supply the 
lack created by the spiritual weakness of the church. What- 
ever one may say concerning " evangelists " and their work, it 
is certain that dependence upon evangelists is a sign of weak- 
ness. It is a confession that the churches with their pastors 
are not able or willing to do their own work. But before 
* not a few of our churches there appear to be these alterna- 
tives : either of having a revival of some sort, through the 
labors of an evangelist, or to do without revival of any sort 
whatever. The latter alternative is often chosen. Of 
course, there is a possibility of something else, but the way 
is " strait " and the gate is " narrow." Many of our churches 
" find " it, but many do not. 

During the last thirty years our Church has increased its 
membership a little more than twofold. The ratio of in- 
crease has been somewhat in advance of that of the entire 
population, but not much. In view of the character of much 
of our added population we may say that the achievement 
of our Church during this period has been, on the whole, 
a good achievement. But it is not the increase of earlier 
decades. For some reason or reasons the rapidity of our 
denominational growth has been checked. Is it not possible 
that while our increase of wealth has been made to contrib- 
ute to our growth in some directions, it has been permitted 
to curtail it in others ? 

It is not wise to ascribe every thing that may be disagree- 
able or ominous in our situation to this or any one cause. 



64 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



But it must be evident that our increase of wealth has not 
been altogether free from the results that Wesley appre- 
hended. " Now if there be not some way to prevent this/' 
said Wesley, " Christianity is inconsistent with itself and 
cannot stand." We remember that the way of prevention 
that he constantly proclaimed was unstinted Christian lib- 
erality, the most rigidly conscientious use of wealth. But to 
be materially and spiritually prosperous, in a large degree at 
the same time, appears to be one of the most difficult of all 
human undertakings. And yet to see what a problem really 
is is said to be half of the solution. To see a peril certainly 
tends to safety. 



SOME DEFECTS IN OUR ITINERANCY. 



(35 



VII. 

SOME DEFECTS IN OUR ITINERANCY. 

BY PROFESSOR CHARLES J. LITTLE. 

Men are droll animals indeed. Englishmen still look for 
Guy Fawkes and his powder-barrels annually in the cellars 
of the House of Commons. Of course they never find them, 
and the British mind resumes its wonted serenity. But any 
proposition to search for discoverable perils would be quite 
another matter. So if I were going to write about the de- 
fects of early Methodism my readers might bear with me. 
But to write of the defects of the existing itinerancy is 
a somewhat bold adventure. However, faint heart never 
won fair hearing. So, fearsome though I be, I nevertheless 
proceed. 

1. A conspicuous defect of our system is the easy access it 
offers to men who are without the triple qualification re- 
quired by our Discipline : gifts, grace, and usefulness. Ed- 
ucation will take care of itself if the gifts and grace are 
present. But twenty-five years' experience in our schools has 
taught me that it is a waste of time and money to attempt 
the making of a silk purse out of sole-leather. My early 
life was in a Conference remarkable for its self-educated 
men. The story of their efforts to acquire knowledge and 
power was full of heroic and pathetic incident. They became 
in mature life men mighty in the Scriptures and in the 
secrets of persuasion. Few of their successors equal them 
even in acquired knowledge, to say nothing of native genius. 

Well, in their day there was no fund to support young 
men at college ; there were no allurements to the ministry 
itself ; there were no fashionable churches eager for the 



66 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



voice of the charmer ; there were no anniversaries for the ex- 
hibition of the latest star. Methodism in their day meant 
conviction for sin and conversion from its power. Method- 
ist preachers were hungry for souls rather than for office ; 
they watched over each other with jealous and sometimes 
exasperating care. The young man who craved learning 
might have many prejudices to surmount, but the young man 
ignorant of his Bible would not have been tolerated at all. 
And surely the fathers were right. No man should be 
licensed to expound the Scriptures who is not familiar with 
their teachings. Throw grammar and physics to the dogs if 
you will ! Let the young preacher be ignorant of Euclid 
and of Darwin — that may be, and is often, clear gain. But 
the words, of Jesus and of Paul, of David and of Isaiah, should 
be at his tongue's end. Now, this is not a plea for biblical 
chatter. Heaven forbid ! We have chatter enough already. 
" Culture," sneered Professor Freeman to an English audi- 
ence, " is chatter about Shelly." Scientific culture is, in the 
same way, chatter about Darwin, and musical culture is chat- 
ter about Wagner. Far be it from me to suggest a biblical 
culture which should drop to chatter about Luke and John, 
or criticism of the Higher Criticism. But no man should 
enter the ministry who is not, intellectually and experiment- 
ally, familiar with the substance and character of the reve- 
lation that he assumes to expound. The Conferences should 
inquire more carefully into the amount of the Bible that can- 
didates for the ministry have absorbed, and into the evi- 
dence of the gifts and the grace and usefulness of every 
man who asks to enter upon the sacred office of Christian 
prophecy. And let the Conferences give the Church the 
benefit of the doubt. 

Of the preachers in general I have no right to speak. But 
my experience in my own classes, with candidates for the 
ministry, has been sometimes painful in the extreme. I have 
found many of them deplorably ignorant of the letter and the 



SOME DEFECTS IN OUR ITINERANCY. 



67 



spirit of the holy word. Instead of wielding it with skill 
and courage, they are prone to rely upon drum-and-trumpet 
rhetoric, thinking vastly more of declamation than of revela- 
tion, of their own poor mouthings than of the voice of God. 
How such young men, when admitted to a Conference, can be 
any thing but a drag upon the itinerant system, I do not see. 
From their ranks, I fancy, are recruited the Conference 
schemers and Conference politicians, the pastors who puff 
themselves in the newspapers, the pulpit charlatan, and the 
vulgarizers of the Gospel. From their ranks, too, come the 
unhappy and the disappointed, who attribute to the system 
the failures due to their own unfitness for the difficult work 
of the Christian ministry. 

And here in passing let me record my decided dislike of 
two schemes which have recently been proposed : he one 
to centralize our educational funds, the other to centralize 
our Conference examinations. Both schemes mean the 
destruction of local dependence and local power. Let every 
Conference take care of its own young men, and let that care 
be such as the Master will approve. From the time that a 
young man receives his license, let him understand that he 
is the ward of his Conference, that he is responsible to it, 
and that it is responsible for him. Let the inquiry into his 
character and conduct be kindly and fraternal, but let it be 
also candid and searching. Let the examinations into his 
gifts and attainments be rigid and impartial, conducted by 
picked men, who shall not be changed at every session of 
the Conference. A German state will not accept the diploma 
of its own university, even, in lieu of the examination for en- 
trance into its service. Why should a Methodist Conference 
be less careful about the qualifications of its members f 

2. No denomination, not even the Roman Catholic, has a 
more complicated and expensive system of superintendence 
than ours. The bishops are only a part of this system ; for 
it includes presiding elders, secretaries, agents, commissions, 



68 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



boards, committees, and even the General Conference. 
These are all parts of a cumbrous and costly machinery, the 
working of which is not without much friction, and which 
fails after all to give us a perfect oversight. In all deference 
to our law-makers, I cannot see the paramount importance 
of the connectional interests which absorb so large a por- 
tion of the energies of our bishops. Theirs is no easy 
task ; their lives are taken up with committees and com- 
missions, with board-meeting and Conference routine. No 
men in America do more work than they ; none do their 
work better. Yet largely as they travel, they do not travel 
in the connection at large. No Methodist bishop is known 
to his preachers and his people as a Catholic or an Episcopal 
bishop is known to his. None of our bishops are known to 
our American Methodists as the presidents of the British 
Conference are known to English Wesleyans. Might not 
our bishops be relieved of much of this connectional routine, 
and might not our Conferences be so organized as to give 
them larger opportunities for a systematic visitation of the 
churches ? In England, face to face with an Annual Confer- 
ence of nine hundred and twelve circuits, a Conference 
embracing Scotland, England, and Wales, I saw that a large 
Conference was, at all events, possible. Why, I asked 
myself, do we need so many Conferences ? Why do we 
deprive our preachers and our people of the blessings of free 
circulation and close supervision ? These Englishmen are 
brought face to face, by means of annual visitations, with 
men like Dr. Arthur, Dr. Moulton, Dr. Young, Dr. Osborn, 
Dr. Rigg, Joseph Bush, Charles Garrett — in a word, with all 
the learning, the intellect, the superior character of their 
communion. Why might we not consolidate our Conferences 
for episcopal purposes ? Our population is becoming rapidly 
more dense; the preachers will soon be obliged to provide 
for their own entertainment ; the five-year rule makes the 
appointments at any one session comparatively few. Why 



SOME DEFECTS IN OUR ITINERANCY. 



69 



not, then, remit the routine work to the district bodies, and 
remit our bishops to the people, who long to see their faces 
and listen to their sermons ? How far the English system of 
chairmen of districts might be employed among us I shall 
not now inquire. I know too well the value of our presiding 
elder to speak lightly of his work, or to suggest carelessly a 
weakening of his office. Nevertheless, the English system 
deserves more careful and more candid study than our 
preachers are wont to give it. I am inclined to think that 
the two systems might be usefully and efficiently combined, in 
connection with larger Conferences, than those we have at 
present. Certainly the English can claim for their itinerancy 
" a circulation of all the talents " such as among us is utterly 
unknown. 

3. In Wesley's day itinerants were nearly all lay-preachers. 
In these later times we have ordained the local preacher into 
the communion rail, and elbowed him out of the pulpit. In 
fact, a local preacher in the old sense of the term one seldom 
meets. Located preachers, candidates for the ministry, local 
elders and deacons, these can be found. But preachers, lay- 
preachers whom the common people hear gladly, where are 
they ? We talk about reaching the masses. Why not reach 
them with lay-preachers? Why is the ultimate aim of all 
our city work to multiply churches, instead of to multiply 
preaching-places ? This is not the genius of Methodism, nor 
is it wise administration. The latter would unify the church 
interests of every community ; it would marshal all to a com- 
mon work, and utilize every form of power. The former 
means a ministry for the Church, not churches to increase the 
numbers of the ministry. Note, too, the preachers in out- 
colleges. In England such preachers— witness the case of 
Davison or Macdonald — are in touch with every movement 
of the Wesleyan brotherhood. Their system provides a 
place for him. But whereabouts in our system is there any 
regular preaching-work for the college professor to do ? Of 



70 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



course, he can preach in some brother's pulpit with or with- 
out compensation. But surely there ought to be some bet- 
ter way of using him than this. As Arthur Young said about 
the French nobles of 1789: " If I could have my way I would 
make some of these great lords skip." They should become 
parts of the itinerant system where their colleges are locited. 
They and the local preachers should have stated appointments 
upon a plan which should bring the intelligence of Meth- 
odism into contact with the people round about. 

But worse than any of the defects hitherto mentioned is 
the Conference shibboleth. Imprisoned as our preachers are 
within such narrow boundaries, living as they do their entire 
lives amid the same scenes and among the same people, they 
become provincialized to a degree they seldom realize 
themselves. They become too often the passionate adherents 
of some Conference leader or some Conference craze. Happy 
is the Conference that is free from demagogues ! Happier 
yet the Conference where the shibboleth is not a power in the 
distribution of appointments ! Leadership is always neces- 
sary. But surely it should be the leadership of superior 
knowledge and superior wisdom. Yet in more than one of 
our Conferences the methods of organization that have made 
the political machine an instrument of personal greed have 
appeared and flourished. Now, I am not complaining of the 
direct results of such methods ; these can be discussed else- 
where. It is the indirect results, the diversion of the 
preachers from their legitimate work, and the creation of 
false standards in the making of appointments, which seem 
to me so deplorable. Go to most of our Eastern Conferences 
on the eve of an election ; nay, travel through the whole 
connection just before the meeting of a General Conference. 
What are the preachers talking about ? What are the sub- 
lime themes to which so many bend their minds? The 
chances of Dr. Getthere for the episcopacy; the canvass of 
Dr. Climbup for a secretary's chair! Analyze the appoint- 



SOME DEFECTS IN OUR ITINERANCY. 



71 



merits. The influence of the work done by the eager adher- 
ents of some member of the cabinet is not always difficult to 
trace. It could not be otherwise. Who is likely to appear 
worthier in any man's eyes than the man that appreciates 
him f Even the failings of men sometimes " lean to virtue's 
side ; " and the gratitude of a warm-hearted soul may easily 
disturb the judgment and lead to grave mistake. 

The American itinerancy is by no means so communistic as 
the English. Yet there is in it enough of communism to re- 
quire the most scrupulous fairness of administration, if the 
churches and the faithful pastors are not to suffer wrong. 
Because Brother Lovesoul listens chiefly to his Master's 
voice, and attends chiefly to his heavenly Father's business, 
he is not the less, but the more, fitted for a position of honor 
and responsibility. Surely the word still holds true, that 
"he that entereth by the door is the shepherd of the sheep, 
and he that climbeth up some other way is a thief and a 
robber." 

The itinerant system must impede to a certain extent both 
mental growth and mental achievement. The earnest thinker 
needs a home reasonably permanent, and comparative free- 
dom from annoying detail and petty exaction. The extension 
of the pastoral term gave to our scholarly preachers the 
one, the increasing intelligence of our people promises them 
the other. But who will deliver our brethren from the Con- 
ference shibboleth ? 

The preachers competent to cope with and conquer the 
difficulties of American life must be men of fearless inde- 
pendence, of swift and powerful intelligence, of resolute and 
unaffected piety, of patient industry ; they must be ac- 
quainted with men, with books, with the structure of society 
with the springs of eternal life. Such men are not formed 
by repetitions of the Conference shibboleth. Such men are 
seldom found where the Conference shibboleth prevails. 
They are developed only in the heroic age of a great move- 



72 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



merit, or in an atmosphere of lofty endeavor and co-operant 
intelligence. Independence and breadth of mind, unpliable 
and resolute individuality, will not in our day seek or remain 
in regions where self-asserting ignorance passes for knowl- 
edge, and where access "to high place is by a winding stair. " 
Our standards of scholarship, of pulpit power, of pastoral 
efficiency, of ministerial dignity, are sinking beneath the 
standards of our fathers. Some of them are absolutely false. 
Others are of the world, worldly. The men that cling to 
the ideals of their youth are sometimes discouraged to find 
so little help, so little sympathy from those that are in au- 
thority. Unwilling to join in the current clamor, seeking for 
themselves and for their brethren a wider horizon and a richer 
life, they find themselves suspected, misunderstood, and often 
disapproved. Push and Pretension rush past them shout- 
ing : " Nothing succeeds like success," until they, with their 
New Testament ethics and New Testament aspirations, seem 
even to themselves the mere reminiscence of a nobler time. 
But ever and anon a thrill of diviner life stirs the great com- 
pany of which they are a part ; a voice within them whispers 
that there are thousands among us who have not bowed 
their knees to Baal, whose mouths have never kissed him. 
To these thousands I appeal. Brethren, out of the shadow 
into the sunshine ! Lift up the standards of an ideal min- 
istry ; the standards of scriptural knowledge, of scriptural 
ethics, of scriptural administration ! Stand up for the con- 
duct and the mind of Jesus Christ ! Let not your good be 
evil spoken of. Away, therefore, with every appearance of 
evil ! For it is not by machinery, and not by organization, 
not by collective egotism or denominational device, that we 
shall succeed. Hereafter, as hitherto, the weapons of our 
warfare must be, not carnal, but spiritual, if they are to be 
mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. 



SCANTINESS OF LITERARY PRODUCTION 



73 



Tin. 

THE SCANTINESS OF LITERARY PRODUCTION 
IN OUR CHURCH. 

BY B. T. RAYMOND, D.D., 

President of Wesleyan University. 

It has been said of our printing-presses that they send 
forth literature by the ton. When this was said, there was 
no suggestion of a doubtful compliment, either in the voice 
or upon the face of the speaker. The truth of the statement 
shows what a multitude of hungry minds is fed by us through 
our press, and what an opportunity is open to us for the best 
results. 

We do not use the term literature in the strict sense as 
equivalent to belles-lettres, but as covering that whole field 
of literary activity which the Church ought to cultivate. 
Says Emerson, in his lecture on Goethe : " I find a provision 
in the constitution of the world for the writer — a secretary, 
who is to report the doings of the miraculous spirit of life 
that every-where throbs and works. Nature will be reported. 
All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, 
the pebble goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock 
leaves its scratches on the mountain. The air is full of 
sounds ; the sky of tokens ; the ground is all memoranda and 
signatures. In nature this self -registration is incessant, and 
the narrative is the print of the seal. It neither exceeds nor 
comes short of the fact ; but nature strives upward, and in 
man the report is something more than the print of the seal. 
It is a newer and finer form of the original. The record is 
alive as that which is recorded is alive." Pre-eminently true 
and applicable is the spirit of this passage to the life divine 
— the product of a new creative act — which throbs in the 
4 



74 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHUB Off. 



Christian heart, and seeks expression in every form of utter- 
ance and every medium of communication possible to man. 

Up to this hour our pre-eminence has been in the pulpit 
and at the altar. Christianity has always shown itself capa- 
ble of utilizing every grade of talent, and every kind of 
agency, from the jaw-bone in the hand of Samson to the 
intellect of Paul at Athens. Mr. Wesley early discovered 
that many men could do effective work as speakers who 
could do nothing as writers, and he took advantage of the 
fact. But the printing-press has become to the Church what 
steam has become to travel and industrial life. It has mod- 
ified the effect of the spoken Gospel, and has developed con- 
ditions that are to be met only by the use of the printing- 
press. The press is now simply indispensable. 

There are certain conditions essential to the literary act- 
ivity of the highest quality. These conditions have for the 
most part been wanting to us. We were pioneers. We 
had not only to preach, but to fight. Our great founder 
traveled 250,000 miles, and mostly on horseback. The growth 
of our population and the demand for the Gospel have kept us 
in the saddle too much of the time for the most successful 
literary work. Pioneers cannot give much attention to the 
refinements of literature. They must provide the essentials 
of life, and prepare the way for a later generation, which shall 
build the college, grow the writer, make the books, and pro- 
vide for the higher culture of the people. 

So irresistible has been the pressure resting upon us for 
the proclamation of the Gospel that we have not allowed the 
men who have had the scholarship, the taste, and the facility 
for the best literary work to remain in ..the surroundings 
which favor and would have enabled them to do this work 
for the Church. The moment a man rose, like Saul, head and 
shoulders above his brethren, even though that pre-eminence 
was achieved in purely scholarly lines, such has been the 
demand for leadership in the great army which has won our 



SCANTINESS OF LITERARY PRODUCTION. 



75 



victories, and such the demand upon the army for aggressive 
work, that he has been picked off and relegated to that part 
of the service. Whether this is to be credited to an inade- 
quate appreciation of the power of the pen, and the provi- 
dence that came to the Church with the printing-press, or to 
the call of the multiplying multitudes that summon us to the 
proclamation of the Gospel, it is not important to decide. 

However diligent a man may be, whatever his scholarship, 
the best work cannot be done in hotels, on trains, and at the 
houses of courteous laymen, where one chances to spend a 
day or a week. The great questions must be abandoned 
under such conditions, must be turned over to the expert, 
who lives in the presence of libraries and whose work is not 
interrupted even for a day. The best scholarship, the most 
advantageous surroundings, leisure, libraries, and life-long 
devotion to a given study are necessary for that fine sense 
which feels its way through tangled masses of facts, rather 
than reasons its way through to valid conclusions. Such sur- 
roundings produce an atmosphere, and give the scholarly 
touch, which is as easily recognized as the touch of a master 
at the organ. We cannot have too many statements of the 
questions which multiply, and to the settlement of which 
each may contribute a ray of light. But the hour demands 
the trained specialist, the many-sided specialist. We mean 
the man who has the historic sense, and so does not become 
a revolutionist, but sees the value of traditions and historic 
institutions, and knows that the present must be an evolution 
of the living past ; who has the philosophic sense and sees 
things in their relations, and yet a specialist, who has a field 
for work and is equipped for his mission. The limiting con- 
ditions which have hitherto attended us in our literary work 
are evident. They have grown out of the glory and success 
of our pulpit and of our mission as evangelists. 

As the fact becomes clear, that the conditions have not been 
altogether favorable for the best literary work, it also becomes 



76 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



clear that a division of labor has been going on, and must go 
on much further, in order to remove these limitations. There 
are two pre-eminent functions to be discharged by the Church. 
The one is that of the evangelist and the other that of the 
tencher. The preacher is supposed in some measure to dis- 
charge both of these functions, and the best endowed man 
for the office of the ministry has, to some extent, the charac- 
teristics both of the evangelist, and the teacher. But just 
as in the evolution of society there is a differentiation of the 
functions of society, and just as the man who in an unde- 
veloped community may be preacher, doctor, teacher, and 
farmer gives place in time to the several men who take up 
these forms of service for society, so in the development and 
more perfect organization of the Church, the same process of 
differentiation is going forward, and the work of the teacher 
and of literature, as a teaching agency, is to be more clearly 
denned. The evangelist gives attention chiefly to the facts 
which men already know, and must appeal to principles they 
already acknowledge. He seeks to persuade men to act now 
upon the truth they now hold. The teacher, however, must 
move more slowly. He does not expect to reach to-day the 
ends he seeks. Indeed, they are not possible to-day. He 
builds pre-eminently for to-morrow. The literary work of 
the Church is not without its evangelizing phase, but literature 
is, first of all, a great teacher. Our literature is the John the 
Baptist of Christian culture, and that is culture in its very 
highest and best sense. 

Not only has the demand for heralds called our men into 
work that did not permit them to do the best literary service, 
but the schools, whence came the writers, have been poorly- 
equipped, and the demand for these writers has been very 
limited. Our first seminary was opened for students in 1817, 
and our first college dates back only to 1822. When we remem- 
ber the adverse circumstances under which the foundations 
of these institutions were laid, and the long struggle with 



SCANTINESS OF LITERARY PRODUCTION. 



77 



poverty which has by no means ceased, the achievements of 
the past in literature, meager though they are, we may well 
take courage for the future. But have the results really 
been meager ? In works adapted to the training of a vast 
multitude of the common people and in far-reaching influence 
they certainly have not. We must not fail to recognize the 
facts in the case, and to remember how much has been done. 

The Church has created a literature, which has been most 
potent in bringing about a complete change in the prev- 
alent attitude of mind, toward many of the fundamental 
problems of theology. This is evident from the trend of 
discussion, and the demand for modification of the great his- 
toric creeds of other Churches. It would be unpardonable 
egotism to assume that they are coming over to us, or 
to assume that the modifications demanded — of the recog- 
nition of the responsibility of each and every man for 
his own salvation, and the recognition of a genuine offer of 
salvation to every man — are to be credited solely to the in- 
fluence of our Church. Nevertheless, it is true that for a 
hundred years we have been proclaiming these doctrines in 
every village and farming community in the land, and in 
every city as well, until, from our pulpit or from our pens, 
they have been brought to the attention of nearly every 
thoughtful man of our time. Neither must we forget that 
we have had eminent scholars and eminent writers. It is 
easy to criticise, easy to do ourselves gross injustice. And 
yet it is true that multitudes of our men of power have 
written scarcely a line ; true, when we consider our numbers 
and the example we had in the life of our founder, that we 
have not produced as many great writers as might reasonably 
have been expected from us ; true, that we have valued our 
literature too much by its bulk. We have now come to the 
hour when we must apply other tests, when we must give 
consideration to that which "cannot be weighed on hay 
scales." 



73 



PRESENT STATE OF TEE CHURCH. 



It would be unjust to say that we have overestimated the 
pulpit and the distinctive work of the evangelist. It is just, 
however, to say that we have underestimated the value of 
the highest style of literature. After one hundred years of 
work in the United States, unparalleled in the history of the 
world for evangelistic results, we have to offer to the world 
only one complete systematic statement of our faith. I refer 
to that of Dr. Miner Raymond, professor of systematic the- 
ology in the Evanston Theological Seminary. This work is 
admirable, every line is luminous and intelligible, but we 
need many more. Bishop Foster's volumes, when com- 
pleted, will furnish another such statement. The students 
who listened to his work in the class-room will never cease 
to regret that Dean Latimer's lectures could not have been 
published. Other eminent scholars among us have manu- 
scripts which would do honor to the Church and bless the 
world, and it is hoped that the next decade will see several 
of these in print. We need these several statements for the 
same reason that we need the four gospels instead of one. 
No living man can compass the whole truth. Each may add 
a ray of light, may make some phase of the truth more 
luminous than others, and all will thus contribute to the sub- 
ordination of non-essentials and the conservation of essentials. 
We ought to multiply monographs on all the vital doctrines 
of our faith. To thoroughly interest a man in some essential 
truth, to the study of which he is attracted, is to commit him 
to the whole body of truth. And while in the monograph a 
great truth is isolated in order to be seen by itself, its treat- 
ment must show relationship and co-ordination with all other 
essential truths. Hence every treatise which seeks to de- 
velop any phase of the theoretical side of the life divine is 
to be welcomed. We have many such, and many more are 
without doubt in course of preparation. 

We also need a body of literature from the Christian point 
of view on all the sociological questions of the time. New 



5 CAN-TINES S. OF LITER A R 7 PR OD UCTIOK 



79 



opinions are germinating at this hour which will shake the 
whole fabric of society, unless they are moderated by the 
conserving power of Christian principles. The effect of a 
wide-spread Christian literature will save the people from 
heady action. The stump orator influences the passions, 
appeals to the selfish side of human nature, confirms preju- 
dices, does any thing to make votes. But a reading con- 
stituency thinks calmly, has opportunity to weigh arguments, 
to consider the bearings of conclusions, and to reach decis- 
ions that spring less from impulse and more from reason. 

We need something that shall produce a " reaction of nature 
against the morgue of conventions." The value of conven- 
tions, and all the wooden machinery that goes with them, 
has been greatly exaggerated. Emerson says : "It is given 
to few men to be poets, yet every man is a receiver of this 
descending Holy Ghost [which Emerson writes without 
capitals], and may well study the laws of its influx." Litera- 
ture floats men into opinions. It works "by secret currents 
of might and mind," and the Holy Ghost enters along with 
the new truth, which the Christ brought to light, unfolding 
that truth into high ideals, and translating it into guiding 
principles for all the questions of the times. Mill thus de- 
scribes the effect of Wordsworth's poems upon himself : 
" What made his poems a medicine for my state of mind 
was, that they expressed not mere outward beauty, but states 
of feeling and of thought, colored by feeling under the ex- 
citement of beauty." There is always a touch of feeling in 
Christian literature. The pathos may easily be left out of 
barren dogmatic statement, and so may the life of Chris- 
tianity, but literature carries the life, by preserving the 
pathos, and by keeping ideals before the mind, even though 
the reader is only half conscious of their presence. We know 
the meaning of the poet who tells us of the 

"Live fact, deadened down, 
Talked over, bruited about, whispered away;" 



so 



PRESENT ST A TE . OF THE CEURCH, 



and we know, too, the creative power of literature, which 
stirs 

" Vibrations in the general mind 
At depth of deed already out of reach" — 

vibrations, however, which become creative energy and rise 
into deeds expressive of that energy. Uncle Tom's Cabin 
was not only convincing, it was creative. It created an 
epoch in the affairs of our national life. And into the affairs 
of life we need to turn the streams of Christian literature, 
and thus "connect learning with the living forces of society." 
Great writers and great books are desiderata with us at this 
time, and there are many reasons why we should enter and 
help to cultivate the field. We have contributed to the de- 
mand for the restatement of the historic creeds ; have 
brought into the foreground the worth and import of the 
personal life, the life that is self-directed. The thought that 
has gone out from other centers, and from antagonistic points 
of view, is face to face with this problem. 

It must be remembered, also, that it is incumbent upon 
each age to think out the theological problems anew, and 
that not because the old truths have failed, but because each 
age discovers, and projects into the thought of the time, a 
vast mass of facts and a multitude of theories that need to 
be assimilated and organized by the Gospel, and subsidized to 
its purposes. It means the translation of old and essential 
truths into the thought and language and life of the time, for 
the Gospel must subdue all things unto itself. If we look 
into the field of philosophy for illustrations of this truth, we 
find that many of the modern difficulties had not been heard 
of in the time of Wesley and Fletcher. Physiological psy- 
chology is a new science, and has its perilous implications, 
for not every psychological theory can be made consistent 
with theology. The facts of this science must be mastered, 
amd its hypotheses made consistent with a real spiritual life. 
This is the work of the scholar and the author. The science 



SCANTINESS OF LITERARY PRODUCTION. 



81 



of ethics cannot ignore the theory of evolution. It need not 
necessarily approve it ; but to allow the ethics of evolution 
to be taught, and then talk to men about responsibility, is to 
invite contempt. An ethical system like that of Herbert 
Spencer, which he applies to man and beast alike, making the 
conduct of the hen good when she takes care of her chickens 
(this is one of his own illustrations) and bad when she does 
not, can be made consistent with a theological system only 
by emptying the word " good " of its essential contents, or by 
lifting the animal to, the level of the ethical subject. This 
teaching sterilizes the soil in which the sense of responsibility 
roots itself, and upon which the ethical life flourishes. It is 
the business of the ethicist to recognize the facts of the evolu- 
tionary hypothesis, and find a consistent co-ordination of 
them with the fundamental conditions of the moral life. 

In the field of biblical theology, which is to us almost a 
new science, we have the most inviting and urgent demand 
for scholarly work. Very little has been done in this science 
by our writers. It seeks to go back to the teaching of the 
Scriptures, and to see them in the light of all the facts of 
the times whence they came. It has led to a diligent study 
of the times of the Christ. In spite of the extravagant and 
destructive theories of many German schools of thought, the 
New Testament stands to-day the best known book, the most 
read and loved of all the books of all the ages. But we have 
not yet contributed our part to the perfection of this science. 
The channels of communication are all open now. Paul 
must send his epistles by some lone messenger • and must 
travel himself by an Alexandrian corn ship, but the Gospel 
to-day must take possession of all the avenues of communica- 
tion among men ; of steam, electricity, literature, and every 
other agency. Its life has never half been told. The 
deepest emotions struggle for utterance and find all means of 
expression impotent. Neither the cold marble, nor the 

speaking canvas, nor the song of the poet, can tell the joy 
4* 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



of love or the bitter grief of bereavement. How far more 
impotent are they to set forth the wealth of that life which 
sings in words unutterable, in the soul of him who knows 
" that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord." No tongue should be dumb, no facts should be 
left unsubdued, no channel of communication unutilized, 
which can serve to make the divine message more reasonable, 
more powerful, or more attractive. 



INTRIGUE IN- THE CHURCH. 



S3 



IX. 

THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH AS AFFORD- 
ING FACILITIES FOR INTRIGUE. 

BY GEOEGE It. CROOKS, D.D. 

If, in a company of Methodists of fair intelligence, one 
were to ask the question, " What Protestant Church in the 
United States subsists under a system of patronage?" he 
would not immediately get the answer, " Our own." Indeed, 
I have found, in testing the knowledge of the young men 
who come before me for instruction, that most frequently 
this fact has never dawned upon their minds. As it is said 
of the average Englishman, that he considers king, lords, and 
commons to be part of the original constitution of nature, so 
it maybe said of the average Methodist, that he believes the 
appointment of preachers to churches by superior officers to 
be a part of the original constitution of the kingdom of 
grace. He does not stop to consider that we have adopted 
an old system, a system which in past ages has been fruit- 
ful of corruption, a system which can be preserved from 
corruption only through the exercise of its powers by the 
godliest of men. 

But with this likeness to the past there is also a difference. 
Under the old systems of patronage, the power to appoint to 
a church -living was vested in a layman, a bishop, a university, 
or the crown itself, according to the terms of the original 
grant for the maintenance of the living. With us there is 
one patron only of all our pulpits — the General Conference. 
This Conference has the sole right of presentation to a 
pulpit when vacant, and has the sole right of declaring a 



84 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



vacancy. Under the old system, the appointment to a living 
carried with it the right of enjoying the revenues of the lands, 
or whatever property was set apart for the clergyman's sup- 
port. Under ours, the appointment carries with it no more 
than a moral claim of the minister to a support from the 
voluntary contributions of the congregation. Under the old 
system the patron was not responsible elsewhere for the 
exercise of his right of presentation ; he might appoint to a 
living for favor, might even sell the next appointment for 
money. The selling of a presentation to a living was often 
practiced. With us the right of presentation to pulpits, 
possessed by the General Conference, is exercised by the 
bishops as its delegates, and for the use of this power they 
are responsible to the Conference. Every four years the ad- 
ministration of the bishops is carefully examined. It is the 
great honor of our episcopate that complaints of a knowingly 
partial exercise of this important function have never been 
heard of. 

But such a system is full of peril; that much, at least, 
must be said of it. It is with us an experiment in the use of 
ecclesiastical patronage new to history. If it had come of a 
preconceived plan, it could be described as a scheme for se- 
curing the advantages of a patronage, without incurring its 
well-known risks. But it did not come of a preconceived 
purpose of any kind; it came of providence or accident, 
whichever term we may please to use. 

To be precise, the system grew out of two facts: (1) Mr. 
Wesley did not, in England, contemplate the organization of 
a Church, but only of a society. (2) He transferred to 
American Methodists the constitution of his society as the 
constitution of a Church. Ever since we have been trying 
to get out of the form of a society and to organize ourselves 
upon proper churchly foundations. In this effort we have 
had an almost endless experience of trouble, murmuring, se- 
cession followed by secession, and what not. In 1872 we did 



INTRIGUE IN THE CHURCH. 



85 



much to remedy the fatal defect in our constitution, as far as 
related to the distribution of powers. More remains to be 
done ; and on the wisdom with which it is done our future 
will largely depend. 

Mr. Wesley regarded his autocracy in England as personal, 
for he says : "It is possible after my death something of this 
kind [a free Conference determining questions by vote] may 
take place; but not while I live." And he lays stress on the 
fact that those whoni he employed as helpers first sought 
him, and asked the privilege of helping him. Naming sev- 
eral of them, he says: "These desired to serve me as sons, and 
to labor when and where I should direct. . . . But I durst 
not refuse their assistance. And here commenced my power 
to appoint each of them, when and where and how to labor; 
that is, while he chose to continue with me. For each had 
a power to go away when he pleased ; as I had also to go 
away from them or any of them if I saw sufficient cause. 
The case continued the same when the number of preachers 
increased. I had just the same power still to appoint when, 
where, and how each should help me ; and to tell any (if I 
saw cause) ' I do not desire your help any longer.'" No one 
needs to be told that this loose bond of union was not the 
proper one for a Church. The helper might- come or go, just 
as he listed ; and John Wesley might send him away just as 
he listed. No reasons needed to be given. " I do not want 
you any longer " was enough. Bishop Asbury was as auto- 
cratic as John Wesley. He would tolerate no rules of order 
in his Conferences ; his will was the sufficent rule. He would 
as little tolerate formal consultation with others in stationing 
preachers. Nor would he suffer Bishop Coke, when in Amer- 
ica, to take part with him in performing this last duty. Thus 
the autocracy of Wesley, made still more autocratic by the 
peculiar temper of Asbury, was imposed not upon a society, 
but upon a fully organized Church.* 

♦It must be remembered that Mr. Wesley was a gentleman, directing the spiritual 



86 



PRESENT STATE OF TEE CHURCH. 



The system of patronage was established among us, as 
these facts show, in its most rigorous form. Gradually pre- 
siding elders were brought in as advisers, not, however, 
under the sanction of written law.* Still the original feat- 
ures of the system — secrecy and absolutism — have been to 
some degree retained. Any one can see, that only with the 
assurance of the disinterestedness of the bishops, can such a 
method of supplying the pulpits of the churches be endured 
for a year. The Wesleyans have cast the secrecy and abso- 
lutism wholly aside. With them appointments to the churches 
are first read, tentatively, in open Conference. The draft, as 
read, is sent to thg churches for consideration, is revised after 
churches and preachers are heard from, and is not made con- 
clusive until a final reading in open Conference. The pat- 
ronage of the pulpits is thereby relieved of its two dangerous 
features. 

And this brings us to our point. Our system, as already 
said, is perilous at best ; if, however, the bishops are carried 
to their places by electioneering intrigues, how can they ad- 
minister impartially? No matter how good the dispositions 
of a bishop so elected may be, he cannot help himself. He 
is under obligations to his "workers," and must repay them. 
To some extent he is in their power ; they know all the arts 
used in canvassing for him, and if he has been privy to the 
use of these he is no longer free. He may begin by offering 
to his friends the positions of honor in his nomination, which 
carry with them no emoluments, but can he stop there ? I 
have seen the question quoted in The Christian Advocate, 

labors of uneducated men— the butcher, the baker, and the candle-stick maker— at a 
time when the lines of separation between social classes were more sharply drawn than 
they are now. His autocratic mode of disposing of them was perfectly natural. There 
was risk in employing some of them at all. But that he loved tbem and reposed full 
confidence in most of them, lived with them as a father with sons, are beautiful facts 
of his saintly life. 

*Bishop Asbury was opposed to the Council of Presiding Elders, and urged M'Ken- 
dree to adopt his plan of stationing without consultation. See Paine's Life of M'Ken- 
dree, p. 223, one volume edition. 



INTRIGUE IN THE CHURCH. 



87 



" How long will Bishop be occupied in paying off his 

political debts ? " Every Methodist is sensible that an officer 
wielding the patronage of one of our bishops should be with- 
out political debts ; should be under obligations to no man 
or company of men for his place. 

It is to be remembered, too, that the episcopate in our 
Church is a position of real power. If it were an office 
of honor only it would not be as attractive as it is to many 
aspiring men. How, then, are we to protect ourselves from 
a liability to the use of intrigues — sometimes far-reaching — 
to get possession of this office ? In answer I beg to call at- 
tention to the suggestion of the third paper of this series, on 
the " Patronage of the General Conference." A plan of in- 
quiry into the qualifications of the nominees is there outlined, 
which, if applied, would greatly help us. Without some ad- 
ditional safeguards, the electioneering intrigues for this place 
will increase, will more and more corrupt, will destroy con- 
fidence in the distribution of the Church's patronage, and 
what will come after that God only can tell. And I beg to 
call attention to a fact that any open-eyed minister can read, 
to wit: that the proceedings of delegates to the last two Gen- 
eral Conferences, in the filling of offices, have left our laity in 
a greater state of exasperation than has been known for years. 

Before dismissing this topic, let me say that so far in- 
trigues for getting possession of the episcopate have usually 
failed. The good sense of the Church has been against them; 
the sense, too, of the sacredness of the office has helped to 
defeat the schemers. We still have a body of bishops whom 
we can trust. But that " combines " (we hate the term) have 
been made to get men into the office all Methodists under- 
stand perfectly well. The apprehension of what may come 
hereafter, if the spirit of intrigue is left to run on without 
check, is the justification of this present discussion. And I 
may add that this apprehension is deep and widely spread 
throughout the Church. 



88 



PRESENT STATE OF TEE CHURCH. 



2. The next fact in the structure of the Church which 
affords facilities for intrigue is the ownership of the press by 
the General Conference. I do not forget that there are local 
papers; these, however, are chiefly purveyors of news; the 
General Conference owns the organs of church opinion. By 
an old theory, not yet out of date, the official editor is ex- 
pected to be the champion of the Church ; by that is meant, 
however, the champion of the majority in the General Con- 
ference that elected him. From this it has resulted that all 
minorities, defeated in the General Conference, have been 
made to suffer at the hands of the official press. When the 
lay delegationists in 1828 were defeated they were made to 
suffer-; when the antislavery men began to demand an ad- 
vance, both in the law and practice of the Church, they were 
made to suffer ; when they became the majority they retal- 
iated on their old antagonists, and punished them through 
the press with like severity. When the second lay delegation 
movement began, its opponents of the official press did their 
utmost to make its promoters suffer,, but they were not strong 
enough to execute their purpose. Some progress in freedom 
had been made since 1828. So entirely was the practice of 
taking possession of the Church press by a majority accepted 
as proper, that between 1857 and 1860 one of the leaders of 
a minority, conscious of growing strength, gave the word to 
his following: "If we fail this time, we will man the posts, 
and continue the struggle." By this was meant : " We will 
get the editorships and suppress the other party." The sup- 
pression of the minority might mean, too, the driving of it 
out of the Church, which was repeatedly done. The old lay 
delegationists were driven out, and formed the Methodist 
Protestant Church. Orange Scott and his associates were 
driven out, and formed the American Wesleyan Church ; and 
it would seem that the ownership of jDapers has been main- 
tained for the purpose of putting it out of the power of mi- 
norities to disturb the action of General Conference majori- 



INTRIGUE IN THE CHURCH. 



89 



ties. The plea has been the protection of the unity of the 
Church ; while, in point of fact, secessions have been forced 
by the violent action of majorities, wielding the enormous 
power of an official press. 

The official editor has been, perhaps, the greatest force in 
the Church. Working in conjunction with a Conference ma- 
jority, whom he would he might set up, and whom he would 
he might put down. Working with a Book Room clique, it 
has been possible in past years for him to pervert justice, and 
a great deal more. If he chooses to deal in intrigue, he is 
furnished by his position with every facility. But woe to 
the official editor if he does not keep a General Conference 
majority at his back ! There is, then, for him, or rather has 
been, nothing less than official ruin. His fate is determined 
without regard to the wishes of his proper constituency. 
He has offended the Conference majority, and his head goes 
off. 

Let me make my meaning a little clearer by some exam- 
ples. It is well known that the Refutation of all Heresies, 
by Hippolytus, was given to the world in 1851, but under 
the name of the Philosophoumena of Orige?i, whose work it 
was first supposed to be. In that same year there appeared 
in the Methodist Quarterly Review, then under the care of 
Dr. McClintock, an article claiming this work as a compo- 
sition by Hippolytus, and not by Origen. In putting forth 
this claim the Methodist Quarterly, as far as I know, led 
the learned world.* Bnnsen, who devoted himself to this 
question, first published in 1852, and Dr. Dollinger's Hippoly- 
tus and Ccdlistus first appeared in 1853. So our scholarly ed- 
itor, by his quickness of apprehension and his use of German 
correspondence, gave Methodism, for the moment, a leader's 
place in Christian scholarship. Yet in 1856 he was uncere- 
moniously ejected from office. And for what ? For asking 



♦These facts, the honorable mention of our Review included, are given in the Bamp- 
ton Lectures for 1890, by Archdeacon Watkins, nearly forty years after the event. 



90 



PRESEXT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



the General Conference to deal tenderly with, the Annual 
Conferences, partly in slave and partly in free States, that 
had faithfully adhered to us in 1S44. He had himself suf- 
ered both in purse and feeling for the oppressed race; for 
his humane efforts to secure to a company of colored men 
and women the benefits of Pennsylvania law, he had been 
arrested and tried on the charge of instigating a riot. All 
this was well known to the General Conference of 1856; but 
he had offended the majority of; the hour and must go. 
The same summary measures were taken with Dr. Abel 
Stevens in 1860, up to that date editor of Hie Christian 
Advocate. He had tried to apply a statesman's sagacity to 
the problem then before us, and was dashed out of place by 
a passionate majority. I have often, during the long inter- 
vening years, when thinking of those scenes, repeated to 
myself the lively stanza of Goethe : 

" Old Saturn eats his children up: 

He makes no conscience of it; 
For salt or mustard he don't stop, 

His taste is quite above it." 

Now I wish to say that scholarship will not serve the 
Church on these terms; it will not submit to a system of ec- 
clesiastical terrorism. The realm of letters is a free repub- 
lic, whose members are all equal citizens. And if they are 
worthy of their privileges they will lay it on themselves as 
a duty to follow truth and not majorities. 

3. I have scarce left myself room to show the liability to 
intrigue through the structure of the presiding eldership. 
Our system is a hierarchy; in the grades are bishops, pre- 
siding elders, traveling elders, as well as local elders, dea- 
cons, and preachers, who, through the Quarterly Confer- 
ence, act upon the people. Essentially, our presiding elder 
is our diocesan bishop, and his functions are those of a dio- 
cesan episcopate. In point of fact, there are men in every 
district'who look to the elder to provide for them. They 



INTRIGUE W THE CHURCH. 



91 



are in a sense dependent on him for subsistence. The great 
man's displeasure is something to be avoided if possible, and 
to cultivate his good-will is of no little moment. This con- 
dition of a large part of our ministry comes of our admitting 
to the Conferences so many imperfectly educated men. 
Their lives begin in dependence, and continue in depend- 
ence on their superior officer. Dependence asks for favor, 
and favor given demands gratitude in return. The votes of 
many of his preachers are at the elder's disposal, and he 
knows it. Thus it comes about that the General Conference 
is largely a Conference of presiding elders. All the inci- 
dents of this position tend to arouse in its occupants a schem- 
ing spirit. Not a few students get to a theological school 
through a fight of afflictions fought with their elders. And 
I am tempted to believe that this opposition comes, in part 
at least, of a preference for handling dependent men, and 
that there is a dread of the rising up of a ministry too strong 
with the people to be subservient. We need such a minis- 
try, and the Church is ready for it. We have gone as far as 
we dare with our over-supply of half -educated preachers. If 
they are dull men they become the food that intrigue feeds 
on. If they are bright, they become riders of hobbies ; re- 
formers, with room in their minds for but one idea. The 
half-educated man is to-day the peril of both Church and 
country. For he thinks he knows when he does not know; 
he is clever without being really capable. The relative pro- 
portions of ideas, the historic sense which looks before and 
after, the conservatism which comes of large knowledge, are 
all wanting to him. You may know him by many signs ; 
among the rest by his tumultuous phraseology, for he is the 
true sesquipedalian. 

Because our ministry is largely composed of such men we 
are exposed to intrigue. They have not stability enough to 
stand on broad principles. Not having a deep hunger for 
the knowledge which the true Christian minister should be 



92 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



ever acquiring, they turn to ecclesiastical politics as their 
most congenial occupation. The structure of the Church 
does the rest. The dependence of so many of his preachers 
upon him tempts the presiding elder to use them for the se- 
curing of place; the ownership of the press by the General 
Conference disposes the official editors to ignore or sup- 
press dissent ; the overestimate of official honors by the 
Church makes the pastors restless, and prompts them to plan 
for getting out of a position in which, above all others, they 
ought to stay. The system of quadrennial elections by the 
General Conference compels its servants, bishops excepted, 
to look well to their chances of re-election. Every one of 
them must keep one eye fixed on his heavenly Master and 
the other on the possible delegates to the next session of 
the august body. The consequence is intrigue, intrigue ; 
intrigue from the adjournment of one General Conference to 
the assembling of the next, and so on in endless series. A 
sense of insecurity haunts the mind of every Methodist 
preacher, and disposes him to use the resources of dexterity 
in his fight against fate. 

This day I plead for my brethren. I plead that they may 
have a better lot; I plead that they may be delivered from 
this perpetual walking on quicksands. I beg the General 
Conference to disburden itself of its vast patronage, and to 
let the relations of the press to the people adjust themselves 
according to the usual methods of American life. I beg it, 
too, to put the election of secretaries elsewhere, so that the 
ambition to get office, in the hope that the secretary may 
soon blossom into a bishop, may be taken away. I beg the 
members of the Annual Conferences to raise the standard 
of admission to. their ranks, that we may have more preach- 
ers whom the churches really want. • It is the form of the 
Church which is turning our ministers into politicians. Let 
us, then, amend the form, and save our ministry from ever- 
increasing temptation to forget their Lord and Master. 



EDITORIAL— OUR S YMP OSIUM. 



93 



X. 

EDITORIAL — OUR SYMPOSIUM. 

O. H. WARREN, D.D. 

We have been gratified with the evidence that has reached 
us that our "Symposium on Church Interests" has inter- 
ested a large class at least of the Northern'' s readers. We 
almost wish that, for the sake of a still deeper and more 
permanent impression, the same series of articles might be 
immediately repeated in our columns ; for each writer seems 
to enlarge the view from the several stand-points which the 
others have taken. Besides, those fundamental principles 
on which these independent thinkers agree are too im- 
portant to be dropped at once from consideration by the 
ministry and membership of the Church. ~No candid, 
thoughtful reader of the series can fail to be impressed with 
the fact that the present is a somewhat critical period in the 
history of our Church, because of the manifest transition 
from old to new conditions, and from old to new methods, 
and that it is the part of wisdom to scrutinize the tendencies 
which this transition is developing. We would, therefore, 
that the strictures, admonitions, counsel, and suggestions 
which the Symposium has presented could be read and pon- 
dered by all our people. 

We would not, however, have this remark received as im- 
plying an unqualified approval of every article in the series; 
for such indorsement would not accord with our convictions 
respecting some of the questions discussed. Controversy, 
however, has not been the purpose of these writers, and it is 
not our purpose. We prefer to lay emphasis on their aim, 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



and on the positions in which they all agree and in which 
they support and confirm one another. 

From the first to the last article of the Symposium, so in- 
timately related to various " Church interests," the dominat- 
ing theme, the central and controlling conception of the 
several writers, has been the Christian ministry — its respon- 
sibilities, the nature, scope, and limitation of its functions, 
and the conditions requisite to its efficiency and success. In 
the consideration of this theme the Church has been held in 
such close and vital relation to the ministry that the two 
have in some instances seemed to be regarded as identical, 
and when properly discriminated have yet been so related 
that the success of the one is made the success of the other, 
and the conditions of that success are treated as involving, 
mutually and equally, the responsibility of the ministry and 
the laity. For instance, Dr. Buttz, in considering the " ob- 
ligations of a great Church," in relation to the promulgation 
and defense of the truth, to rational and scientific inquiry, 
and to the promotion of education, art, and literature, as- 
sumes the existence of a teaching force upon whom this re- 
sponsibility is laid. And so, too, Dr. McChesney, in his ar- 
ticle, entitled " The Effect of Increased Wealth Upon Amer- 
ican Methodism," considers especially the influence of wealth 
in relation to the work of the Church, which work is insepa- 
rable from that of the ministry, under whose leadership and 
direction it is placed. The other articles make the primary 
and permanent responsibility of the ministry for the condi- 
tion, life, enterprise, and achievements of the Church still 
more prominent, though often identifying it with that of the 
Church itself. 

In the nature of the ease, and not by virtue of any arbi- 
trary arrangement, the responsibility of church organization, 
under the divine commission, rests with the instituted minis- 
try. But for this primary authority the ministerial respon- 
sibility of the apostles would have ended with the exercise 



EDITORIAL— OUR SYMPOSIUM. 



95 



of their individual freedom in the preaching of the word 
The ministry which Christ commissioned must primarily pre- 
scribe and enforce the conditions of Christian fellowship, 
set up and maintain the standard of Christian doctrine, and 
devise the means for carrying on their own work. The per- 
formance of these duties was primitive church government. 

But the necessity which primarily places this responsibil- 
ity upon the ministry alone does not imply that it should al- 
ways remain there, or that lay representation is permanently 
excluded from the government of the Church. But other 
inferences are unavoidable, and among them is that of the 
jDermanent responsibility of the ministry. Whatever Chris- 
tian men and women are free to do, or should do, the minis- 
try must do that which is essential to the successful prosecu- 
tion of their work, or be disobedient to the great commis- 
sion. They must preach; they must as pastors care for the 
flock; they must plan and devise and execute for the spread 
of the Gospel. All this they may do in counsel and with the 
aid of the laity, but they may not surrender their direct re- 
sponsibility to the Master. Ought not all church govern- 
ment to recognize this principle ? 

The emphasis laid by some of our contributors upon the 
dangers which beset our ministry and the Church might be 
offset Avith the assurance of security — possibly without any 
material change in our church polity — if this responsibility 
were recognized and met in the spirit of entire consecration 
and apostolic zeal. If the standard of ministerial qualifica- 
tion and devotion presented by Drs. Chapman, Little, and 
Crooks were adopted and faithfully adhered to by every 
minister in our Church, or generally, with only here and 
there an exception, where would be the "ecclesiastical poli- 
tics," now so frequently alleged to the disgrace of the min- 
istry ? Who would think of characterizing our division of 
official service and responsibility as a system freighted with 
the dangerous power of patronage ? Who would point to 



96 



PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH. 



the General Conference, the episcopacy, the presiding elder- 
ship, as the seats of power from which such patronage is dis- 
tributed ? Who would fear an official press as the instru- 
ment of ambition and oppression ? We say nothing as to 
the justice of these allegations ; we only assert that, under 
any system of government, the only guarantee against the 
multiform evils to which human selfishness exposes the 
Church is to be found in a competent, earnest, consecrated, 
and divinely endowed ministry. With such a ministry the 
Methodist Episcopal Church will have little to fear. 



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